take4: 4.7.12
20h: Panelstory aneb Jak se rodi sidliste, Czechoslovakia 1979, english subs
Movie from the late 70ties about the miserable life in giant
livingquarters. One of Vera Chytilová ("Daisies", "Fruit of Paradise")
more recognized later movies.
Subtitled " The Genesis of a Community, " the neglected 1979 masterpiece
Prefab Story (a/k/a Panel Story; May 24 at 3:50 p.m.) is set at a
complex of huge apartment blocks in Prague. Amid the continual
renovation that has transformed the space between the buildings into a
chaos of dirt and rubble, numerous characters wander in and out of the
plot, badgering one another, eating, drinking, making love. In the
absence of official authority (an ineffectual policeman is more at sea
here than anyone else), the inhabitants of the complex make their own
order. Minding other people’s business is both the original sin of this
world and its possible salvation. In one scene, a pregnant woman berates
two workmen for questioning her presence in a flat into which she has
moved on her own initiative. While another woman goes into labor, an old
man diverts medical help to an old woman who has retreated, seemingly
permanently, behind the dirty window of her balcony. The camera is
restless, erratic; the defiance of " professional " filmmaking standards
is total; the pleasures of the film are infinite.
That this interest in destructive behaviour in relation to morality is
not specific to Panelstory emerged when, in an earlier part of the
discussion, she described the formal film language of Sedmikrásky (which
she denied was avant-garde) in these terms:
Not just in the dramaturgical sense but in the philosophical and
existential sense, we wanted to have real characters, real people,
acting like puppets. We wanted the viewer to really grasp the meaning of
the film. And that meaning was a protest against destruction. The
destruction, in any sense of the term, in our lives. Destruction is
going on in our lives and especially in our relationships. So, we wanted
to use film language to show this.
Considering the estate (in its planning stage) as a socialist paradise,
the film can be seen to link in with other Chytilová films that allude
to the Garden of Eden: Ovoce stromů rajských jíme (Fruit of Paradise,
1969), Hra o jablko (The Apple Game, 1976) and Vyhnání z ráje (Expulsion
from Paradise, 2001). The latter is particularly close in spirit to
Panelstory, depicting an act of misguided creation (shooting a film)
that leads to a moral abomination.
ab 22h: Poland 1987,ca120min., english subs
A political allegory wrapped in the guise of a gory horror film, Andrzej
Zulawski's The Devil did not escape the wrath of communist censorship.
The film was banned in Poland for 15 years, before getting a sporadic
release in 1987.
Jakub (Leszek Teleszynski), a young 18th century nobleman, rots in
prison for conspiring against the king. A mysterious stranger frees him,
but in exchange he demands a list of Jakub's fellow conspirators. Jakub
follows the stranger on a journey across a nightmarish, snowbound
countryside where they witness countless acts of brutal violence.
Affected by the overall chaos and moral corruption, the young nobleman
descends into madness.
The Devil is a lost treasure of Eastern European cinema and a unique addition to the horror genre.
At the climax of Harold Pinter's vaguely allegorical but wholly chilling play
The Birthday Party,
the broken hero is being taken away by strangers, no doubt to a bad
place. The locals, who have no idea what sort of political act of terror
is being committed, stand by helplessly, but one of them rises and
says, "Stan, don't let them tell you what to do!" Even though Pinter
never makes a specific point of reference as to what deplorable regime
is imposing its will, the viewer intuitively understands the message. So
it is with Andrzej Zulawski's
The Devil. International audiences
unfamiliar with Polish politics might not know or care that his horror
film was based on actual events from the turbulent 1960s, during which
communist authorities provoked a group of Warsaw students into staging
anti-censorship protests. This gave the powers that be an easy excuse to
crack down on dissidents, leading to mass arrests and, in the process,
striking a blow for free speech. Zulawski used this incident as the
basis for his film, hiding it in costumes and throwing in a monster, but
he doesn't depend on viewer familiarity with a specific incident;
instead he paints a world of fear, oppression, and suppressed outrage
that could happen anywhere, anytime.
When Zulawski filmed
The Devil, he told the Polish authorities he
was making a period film set in the 18th-century, when the Prussians
were invading Poland and killing everyone wholesale. The film opens
during a hysterical prison break where a shell-shocked, brooding young
man named Jakub (Leszek Teleszynski) is led away from captivity by a
grinning, vaguely satanic man in black (Wojciech Pszoniak). Everyone
around them is shrieking in hysteria, frantically trying to escape or
wish themselves elsewhere, and moments later soldiers appear blasting
everyone in sight with their muskets. Jakub and his strange benefactor
take flight across a bleak, war-torn winter landscape with a hostage nun
(Malgorzata Braunek), encountering madmen, theatre troupes, and
nymphomaniacs along the way. Of course, the authorities watched
The Devil, realized exactly what Zulawski was up to, and promptly banned the film for 17 years.
Whether taken as a historical drama or a horror film,
The Devil
is unabashedly a parable about misappropriated anger against the forces
of evil. Jakub is led home by his dark-clad benefactor, only to discover
that everything has taken a turn toward the rancid and horrible. His
father has committed suicide, his mother has transformed into a
prostitute, his sister has been driven insane, and his fiancée has been
forced into an arranged marriage with his best friend, who has turned
into a political opportunist and turncoat. Leading him through this
world turned upside down is the man in black, who continually whispers
sarcastic platitudes in the hero's ear and inciting him to acts of
extreme violence. Zulawski, whose films reach unparalleled heights of
vitriolic insanity, stages elaborate sequences with Jakub either
throwing himself into fits of rage or sinking into narcoleptic despair,
and the man in black—the true devil of the movie, who even transforms
into a literal werewolf at one point—ruthlessly egging him on toward
oblivion.
Imagine
Network's Howard Beale, pumped up on amphetamines and two
tons of cocaine, and wielding a straight razor when he proclaims, "I'm
mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!" That's the height of
misappropriated righteous anger Zulawski pitches his film at, and as
Jakub slaughters at least a dozen or more people in the final third of
the movie, one sees just how far a human being can be pushed or
manipulated in the name of duty and honor. It's appropriately repulsive
and uncomfortable, and for an American audience a good reminder of how
often we revel in the cinematic glory of macho "good guys" killing "bad
guys" as the solution to life's complex problems. What's especially sad
is that this attitude, reflected in the movies, is all too often the
black-and-white solution proposed by the powers that be in, say, Vietnam
and Iraq, and one that results in perpetuating even more unaccountable
horror. As Charles Mee wrote in his play
The Trojan Women 2.0,
"Why is it [that] at the end of war the victors can imagine nothing
better than to remake the conditions that are the cause of war?"
Zulawski, like Roman Polanski, was born into a world of bombs dropping
overhead, and he was one of the few children in his family to survive
WWII. No doubt, it's easy for him to re-imagine the contemporary world
as a place of shifting allegiances and untrustworthy moral platitudes.
As usual for his films, the camera hurtles vertically across rooms and
fields and spirals around as the actors pitch their performances at
maximum volume. Society for Zulawski is just a thin veneer used to
disguise the horrible sadism and unhappiness lurking inside every human
heart.
The Devil would make for maudlin, depressing viewing if
every scene didn't feel like explosions were being set off, sending the
inmates of a madhouse free into the streets outside.
Is insanity the only sane response to an insane world? Zulawski's movie
says maybe instead one should take time out and reflect before plunging
into an even deeper hell.
