Soul of a woman conjures 'Mario, the Magician’

Hungarian director Tamás Almási is proud that he is reputed to have the “soul of a woman.” Inspired by Thomas Mann’s novel of the same name, the veteran documentary maker’s second feature film “Márió, a varázsló” (“Mario, the Magician”) is actually about a Hungarian woman’s fascination with her Italian boss.“Everybody has somebody in whom you see what you always wanted to see,” said filmmaker Almási. In Mario (Franco Nero), we see what Vera (Júlia Nyakó) ‘always wanted to see’ — a hint of...