Movie · 2017 · Drama, Romance, Fantasy · 1h 56m · HU
Curator score: 7.4/10 (67.2K ratings)
We meet at night. In our dreams.
Overview
Two introverted people find out by pure chance that they share the same dream every night. They are puzzled, incredulous, a bit frightened. As they hesitantly accept this strange coincidence, they try to recreate in broad daylight what happens in their dream.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.4/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.77/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Metacritic: 77
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
Ildikó Enyedi
Production
Inforg-M&M Film
Cast
Alexandra Borbély, Morcsányi Géza, Réka Tenki, Ervin Nagy, Zoltán Schneider, Tamás Jordán, Itala Békés, Éva Bata, Pál Mácsai, Zsuzsa Járó, Nóra Rainer-Micsinyei, Júlia Nyakó
Curator Review
Verdict
A quietly original romance that turns a bizarre shared dream into a tender study of loneliness, embodiment, and trust. Its deadpan workplace realism and surreal dream logic make it feel both delicate and unsettling.
Best for
viewers who like unconventional romances
fans of slow, atmospheric European cinema
people drawn to dreamlike symbolism and emotional restraint
audiences open to awkward, offbeat humor
Skip if
you want a conventional love story
you dislike slow pacing and long silences
you need clear answers and tidy symbolism
you are uncomfortable with slaughterhouse settings and bodily imagery
Overview
On Body and Soul is one of those rare films that finds genuine tenderness in a setting that should feel inhospitable. The slaughterhouse backdrop, the clipped routines, and the social awkwardness all sharpen the sense that these people are stranded inside themselves. When the dream connection arrives, it doesn’t play like a gimmick; it feels like a strange permission slip for intimacy.
Worth noting
Ildikó Enyedi stages the film with patience and precision, letting small gestures carry the emotional weight. The result is a romance that is less about grand confession than about learning how to be present in another person’s orbit. The film’s stillness can be distancing, but that distance is part of its point: these characters are trying to cross an enormous internal gap.
Bottom line
What lingers is the film’s uneasy balance of beauty and discomfort. It is funny in dry, unexpected ways, and it is also deeply attentive to vulnerability, shame, and the body as both barrier and bridge. For viewers willing to meet it on its own wavelength, it’s haunting and moving.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Lucy (3.5★) · 542 likes
AFI 2017: film #8
i’m a vegetarian now and also soulmates are real
Wim Wenders · 415 likes
The Hungarian film director Ildikó Enyedi is one of the most brilliant women filmmakers working today. Her film ON BODY AND SOUL from 2017 is an amazing story about dreams and love and longing, and it has deeply moved me when I first saw it. The thought that a man could not have made this film intrigued me a lot.
Wim Wenders (excerpt from an introduction published on Acontraplus in November 2023)
Eli Hayes (4★) · 274 likes
"And all at once, you are the one I have been waiting for
King of my heart, body, and soul, ooh whoa
And all at once, you're all I want I'll never let you go
King of my heart, body, and soul, ooh whoa"
Vivian (4★) · 179 likes
me: I truly saw myself represented onscreen for maybe the first time ever. That's how important this year's oscar nominees are.
someone: oh yeah Lady Bird really affected me too 💕 it was so relatable
me, thinking about the scene where maria is eating gummy bears and watching porn: lady what
Milez Das (4★) · 159 likes
It is not very easy to meet people in real life, even though we might have 100's on social networking sites. There is still the awkwardness involved along with the first word to say and the letting someone in your life. The setting of On Body and Soul might be unusual to form a sensitive love story but who says you can't find love in a slaughterhouse?
Endre and Mária work together in a slaughterhouse and have the same dream… more