Monday, 16 May 2011

AFED #135: Kaidan chibusa enoki [Ghost of Chibusa Enoki, aka The Mother Tree] (Japan, 1958); Dir. Gorô Kadono

Although Japanese supernatural horror might nowadays lead one to think of stories about cursed videotapes and spectral emo girls who can't keep their hair out of their faces, these are only recent manifestations of a tradition that's several hundred years old.

Japanese ghost stories, or kaidan, first emerged during the Edo period in the seventeenth century, adapted and inspired by earlier Chinese ghost stories. Typically they revolve around vengeful spirits who return to redress a wrong committed against them in their mortal lives, or sometimes with a general grudge against humanity.

Kaidan have inspired two of Japanese cinema's most celebrated films - Kobayashi's Kwaidan and Mizoguchi's Ugetsu - but there are numerous other lesser works that draw upon this heritage. During the fifties the Shintoho, a short-lived studio founded by former employees of the more famous Toho Co, produced a series of modest kaidan films, one of which was The Mother Tree...

This compact (just 6o minutes), economical feature is the story of Chibusa Enoki, a successful painter who takes on a scheming samurai as his apprentice. When Chibusa goes away to fulfill a long-standing commission the samurai seizes the opportunity to rape the painter's devoted wife before murdering her maid. Upon the painter's return the samurai forces Chibusa's servant into helping lure the unsuspecting artist into a trap and murders kills them both, casting Chibusa's body into a pond.

However, the dead man left his last painting unfinished, which appears to be a pretext to return and exact some righteous justice. After making an appearance before his wife and instructing her to deliver their newborn child to the safety of the 'mother tree' the baleful Chibusa sets about achieving his retribution against the villain.

Although by all accounts a fairly typical example of the genre, to less accustomed western eyes it's an engrossing tale which delivers the requisite chills. The camerawork and editing are more conventional than I anticipated (none of the long, pensive shots of Ozu or Mizoguchi here) but within its budgetary limitations there's a building sense of foreboding before the eventual payoff.

Tuesday, 3 May 2011

AFED #123: Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (France/US, 1988); Dir. Marcel Ophüls

Marcel Ophüls' Oscar-winning documentary is a sprawling epic that seeks answers to questions both factual and philosophical. Through a composite of dozens of interviews with subjects in France, Germany and the Americas he builds a portrait of the career of Barbie, the Nazi war criminal dubbed the Butcher of Lyon, perhaps most infamous for his capture and torture of the French Resistance leader Jean Moulin.

The director's diligent efforts to get to the bottom of the Moulin affair, and who may or may not have exposed him to the Nazis, make up much of the first half of the four and half hours. Even forty years after the event the wounds and recriminations continue to fester in the survivors and the testimonies suggest that the matter of collaboration is not quite as clear as one might imagine.

It also touches upon Barbie's formative years and the first-hand accounts of those who suffered from his sadistic interrogation techniques. Yet perhaps more astonishing are the disclosures of what happened after the war, when far from bringing Barbie to account for his crimes American intelligence instead deployed him to help them root out communists in the newly liberated Germany. Later they would assist Barbie's escape to South America, where he provided further assistance to the CIA in Bolivia before finally being extradited back for trial in Europe decades later.

Like many Nazis Barbie's lack of contrition for his crimes renders it difficult to feel much sympathy for the man, yet there are glimpses that some found him to be a likeable character and even good company, alebit often ignorant of his past. One can fully appreciate this was Ophüls' modus operandi but a little more insight into Barbie's personal life would have added richness and complexity. To understand evil one needs to understand both its provenance and the moral code by which reprehensible actions become allowable.

Or maybe this was outside the film's remit. Regardless, it's complex, disturbing and absorbing film-making.

Monday, 2 May 2011

AFED #122: The Man Who Laughs (US, 1928); Dir. Paul Leni

Given the high regard in which it's held I perhaps had unfair expectations of The Man Who Laughs. Based on Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, like his more celebrated Notre-Dame de Paris it's a historical melodrama with gothic overtones. In the hands of director Paul Leni it becomes an atmospheric romance that sanitises the German Expressionist aesthetic.

Although it's actually one of the earliest Universal pictures to incorporate sound elements it has the opulent production standards typical of silent films during this period, with some elaborate sets depicting 18th century London and the court of Queen Anne. But at nearly two hours the story seems stretched to the point of tedium and the characters lack the depth or complexity to make them engaging.

Yet Conrad Veidt, an actor who comfortably ranks amongst my all time favourites, delivers a sensitive performance as Gwynplaine, the unfortunate hero who is disfigured as a child in an act of revenge against his nobleman father. At least, as sensitive as it's possible to be when your face is locked in a permanent grin. His distinctive visage famously inspired Jerry Robinson in his creation of Batman's arch nemesis The Joker, but one suspects Christopher Nolan (earning his second namecheck in two days) revisited this film before his own take on the character in The Dark Knight.

I was expecting a darker and altogether more twisted tale than delivered here but perhaps I should have read up beforehand.

Sunday, 1 May 2011

AFED #121: Paprika (Japan, 2006); Dir. Satoshi Kon

If you wonder where Christopher Nolan found his inspiration for Inception then look no further. The wunderkind writer/director has readily acknowledged that Satoshi Kon's 2006 anime was an influence and not only do they share the same premise - that of being able to share other people's dreams - but certain images were directly copied.

That's not a slight towards Nolan and Kon's own influences, such as the work of author Philip K. Dick, are readily apparent here in this story of a technological innovation that allows therapists to enter the dreams of their subjects. Inevitably it falls into the wrong hands and is put to malicious ends, resulting in a dream that spreads like a virus, blurring fantasy and reality.

Like his earlier film Millenium Actress (AFED #36) Kon allows his imagination to go to town with some astonishing sequences and truly hallucinogenic dream imagery. Unfortunately it also shares the flaw of sacrificing something in the way of coherence and at times you're not quite sure what's supposed to be happening. Possibly the fault was my own and I'm sure repeated viewings will prove rewarding.

Thursday, 21 April 2011













Tuesday, 19 April 2011


















Saturday, 16 April 2011

















Thursday, 14 April 2011









Wednesday, 13 April 2011











Tuesday, 12 April 2011

















Monday, 11 April 2011











Sunday, 10 April 2011








Friday, 8 April 2011








Thursday, 7 April 2011










Wednesday, 6 April 2011









Tuesday, 5 April 2011



My conviction's gone. I've nothing to say.

Sunday, 3 April 2011


Just a short review here...





Friday, 1 April 2011

















Wednesday, 30 March 2011

AFED #88: Behind the Headlines (UK 1956); Dir. Charles Saunders

I'm going to have to be quick because this one was so forgettable I'm afraid it might slip from the memory entirely.

Behind the Headlines is a short (just 65 minutes) second feature that was presumably produced as a 'quota quickie'; low-budget British films made under the edict of the 1927 Cinematograph Films Act with the intention of stimulating the indigenous industry. Between 1930 and 1960 (when the Act was repealed) thousands of quickies were made, mostly deemed to be of lamentable quality.

Personally I think there are some real gems amongst them and hopefully I'll be able to look at some more in the coming weeks and months. In fact Behind the Headlines is by no means a bad example and certainly benefits from higher production values than were typical, but there's nothing remarkable either.

It starts promisingly; a platinum blonde bombshell takes a phone call at her flat from somebody she's apparently blackmailing and shortly after is murdered by persons unknown. The story moves forward to a few hours later and in a pub opposite the murder scene a gaggle of Fleet Street hacks have assembled awaiting a police briefing.

Foremost amongst these is Paul Banner (Paul Carpenter), an ex reporter turned press agent who sets about getting the inside info on the murder and scooping not only the other hacks but the police too. He's abetted by Pam - a young Adrienne Cori, sounding very prim and looking not unattractive - who seems more interested in Paul than the investigating the murder.

Events progress from pedestrian to plain ridiculous. In an absurd development it turns out the killer left a slip of paper at the crime scene containing a numerical code which when cracked helpfully reveals his name! Halfway through Banner's former fiancee Maxine (Hazel Court) appears and rather steals the attention away from Corri's character. At the denouement there's a standoff with the murderer that manages to be wholely bereft of tension.

With a light and flirtatious tone it felt strangely like a pilot for a television series, so perhaps there were plans for more of Paul Banner's adventures that mercifully never reached fruition. Canadian actor Paul Carpenter, who's career mainly comprised of supporting roles, is a perfectly competent leading man but was never likely to be a box office draw. Corri and Court, the rivals for his affections, would become better known for other roles in later years and there's also a nice turn from Alfie Bass as Paul's salt-of-the-earth assistant.

But an authentic portrayal of fifties journalism this film definitely isn't; in fact you wonder if the writers had any knowledge whatsoever of the trade and kind of people who work in it. One can be thankful that the ubiquity of clipped RADA accents found here would disappear as British cinema became a little earthier over the next decade. This was just dull though.

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

AFED #87: The Gods Must Be Crazy (South Africa/Botswana, 1980); Dir. Jamie Uys

Speak, memory. Back in my last year of university, some thirteen years ago, I found myself spending a lot of time at the student union bar. They were pretty uneventful evenings, truth be told, and most of the time me and few of the other guys on my film studies course used to talk about nothing very much. Actually, they tended to do most the talking, for the main part I was content to listen.

But there used to be a few characters who frequented the place. One of them I particularly recall was an Irish mature student called Rob, who was doing an art degree. Being quite a bit older the guy had a certain swagger and confidence most of us gauche kids lacked (i.e. he'd actually had a life) as well as an occasionally excitable Celtic temperament. He irritated me early on by asking me where I came from - by which he meant ethnically - which, as a hangover of experiencing racism when I was younger was always a bit of a sore point. But he was basically a nice guy and I often wonder what became of him.

Anyway, one evening Rob was talking to us about films and he mentioned The Gods Must Be Crazy.

"It's a great film, you must have seen it, it's very famous."

The what? We looked at one another with quizzical expressions. Despite being supposedly knowledgeable film students we'd never heard of it. What on earth was the mad old git talking about? Rob proceeded to give us an account of the film, something about Africa and Coca Cola bottles, it all sounded a bit strange. That's to say the kind of thing I wanted to check out for myself.

Later I went home and consulted Halliwell's and a couple of my other film guides (this being virtually pre internet) but could find no reference to it. In fact it wasn't until a couple of years later that I finally verified the thing existed at all. Even then it seemed so elusive that I never managed to get hold of a copy and satisfy my curiosity. Until now, that is...

So just what is The Gods Must Be Crazy? Well, it's a knockabout comedy set in South Africa and Botswana that launched a series of films centred around Xi (N!xau), an endearing Sho bushman from the Kalahari desert.

It begins with a mondo style account, complete with voice over - of the bush people's lives and how they're able to survive in this inhospitable environment. The Sho, the film informs us, are completely ignorant of 'civilised' customs and live off the land in an idyllic existence free from such corrupt contrivances as greed or property.

Yet that begins to change when Xi discovers a Coke bottle that's been thrown from a passing airplane. Having never encountered glass before Xi takes it to be a gift from the gods and soon the people of his tribe are putting this remarkable object to a variety of uses.

But because it's so unique the bottle begins to inspire hitherto unknown vices such as jealousy and possessiveness. Dismayed, Xi concludes the bottle is evil and decides there's no alternative but to travel to the end of the world and throw the infernal item off the edge.

After this charming opening the film begins to become a lot more tangled with two more interrelated plot lines. First a band of guerrillas fail in their bid to assassinate the leader of a nearby African country and find themselves fleeing the authorities. We're then introduced to Andrew Steyn, a shy biologist living in outback who has to collect Kate, the attractive new teacher of the local village, in his dodgy Land Rover. There are an interminable series of mirthless slapstick escapades before they get there.

Gradually the elements coalesce and Andrew ends up rescuing Xi from imprisonment when he naively kills a herdsman's goat for food. At the climax the pair help foil the guerrillas when they kidnap Kate's class and Xi is finally able to dispose of the bottle and return home.

The Gods Must Be Crazy can be interpreted in several different ways, none of them strictly right or wrong. On the one hand it makes plenty of use of crude stereotypes: the noble savage with his childlike world view and the comically incompetent black militants. Both are facile and even in 1980 belonged to an earlier time.

Conversely one could say that the white characters don't fare that much better; yet while they're vain and conceited they are at least depicted as educated and articulate. Endemic prejudice remains the proverbial elephant and the makers knew they would be playing to mainly white audiences. Yes, the film may suggest that Xi and his people have the preferable life but in reality they envy our civilised culture as much as we do their 'simpler' one.

Beneath the corpulent excess there's a sweet fable and regardless of the patronising angle N!xau's guileless performance has genuine charm. Told properly this had the potential for an effective epic satire in the tradition of Candide, but it's no better than so so.

Sunday, 27 March 2011

AFED #86: Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (India/US, 2002); Dir. Aparna Sen

Although Bollywood cinema has risen in prominence in the west in recent years, the independent tradition, what's known as the Indian New Wave or Parallel Cinema, has a history that's nearly as long as its mainstream counterpart.

Its most famous exponent is of course Satyajit Ray, whose Apu Trilogy remains one of the great landmarks of world cinema. But the independent tradition of making films that don't shy away from contemporary concerns and divisive issues continues - despite some ups and downs - to the present day.

Released in 2002, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, is an example of the more recent trend towards films made in English, presumably with an eye towards the international market. This perhaps accounts for some of its mildly expository tendencies, but that doesn't detract from a touching and sensitively told melodrama.

A road movie of sorts, it's the story of Meenakshi Iyer, a young Indian mother travelling with her baby son back to the city after a trip to visit her parents, and Raju (Rahul Bose), a photographer taking the same trip who's been asked to keep an eye on her. When their journey is halted by a Hindu mob who've been rampaging through the area attacking Muslims, the pair are forced to pretend to be a married couple for fear that Raja, a Muslim, will die at their hands.

After seeking refuge at a nearby town while the curfew continues, circumstances contrive so that the 'couple' are forced to maintain the subterfuge. After some early misgivings borne of Meenakshi's devout Hindu beliefs, their relationship slowly grows midst the tense backdrop, until they're finally able to find a way back home.

It's a scenario straight out of the scriptwriter's handbook of course, and a not dissimilar plot was used in last year's Monsters. The crucial difference here being that the atrocities the characters are forced to confront here are firmly grounded in the sectarian troubles of contemporary India.

Writer/director Aparna Sen is clearly keen to make wider allusions to global terrorism and the horrors that result from ideological conflict; beginning with a montage of news reports including 9/11 (at the time of production still very recent). Yet it it's in her depiction of different facets of Indian society that she does her best work.

For the opening thirty minutes she simply focuses on the different characters on the bus: a group of excitable young students, a romantic young couple, a pair of Sikh gentlemen, a mother with a retarded son, a trio of boorish card playing characters and an ill-fated elderly Muslim couple. They're ostensibly a collection of stereotypes, but considering how little actually happens it's strangely compelling viewing and a little disappointing when these personalities slip into the background later on.

The budding romance between the two leads is inevitably thwarted by their personal circumstances and the gut-wrenching final parting at the train station is surely a deliberate nod to Brief Encounter. Of the two performances the pretty Konkona Sen Sharma (the director's real-life daughter) has the trickier role as the young woman forced to confront her own prejudices and she delivers with aplomb.

As a human drama it's engagingly told and although the broader political message may be rather heavy-handed most sensible people would surely concur with the sentiment.

Saturday, 26 March 2011

AFED #85: Potomok Chingis-khanа [The Heir to Genghis Khan, aka Storm Over Asia] (USSR, 1928); Dir. Vsevolod Pudovkin

Let's start with the facts: western imperialism may have been responsible for many injustices, but despite the scenario depicted here British (or 'European') colonialism in Asia never extended as far as Mongolia. While Vsevolod Pudovkin may have intended his story to be a fable one suspects this point might have been lost on a the Russian audience, although perhaps it was all grist to the mill for the communist cause as Stalin began to flex his muscles.

That aside, I'll have to confess my ignorance about the work of Pudovkin, who lives somewhat in the shadow of his contemporary Eisenstein, but also played an important role in expanding Soviet montage theory. This film, the final part of a loose trilogy of Bolshevik propaganda works that included Mother (1926) and The End of St. Petersburg (1927).

Compared with Eisenstein it's surprisingly western, in both the broader and thematic sense of the word, utilising the barren Mongolian tundra in a way John Ford would have admired. Bair (Valéry Inkijinoff), a Mongol herdsman, is tricked out of his rightful recompense for a beautiful fox pelt by dastardly fur traders and after a violent confrontation is forced to go on the run. After meeting up with some Soviet partisans he joins their guerrilla campaign against the British but gets captured.

The herdsman is led for execution but just as he's being shot the officers looking through his belongings discover a silk amulet that states he's a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Cynically one might suggest such claims were probably fairly common amongst Mongols, but the British decide he could be the ideal candidate to install as a puppet ruler and - having discovered him clinging to life after his shooting - set about patching him up.

However, for all the finery our hero is less than comfortable with his new role and when he witnesses a fellow Mongol shot dead before his eyes he turns with fury on his captors, triggering a somewhat bizarre fantasy ending as escapes and leads an uprising. This climax is so abrupt and curtailed you do wonder if Pudovkin had intended for there to be a third act, only to realise he'd already reached a running time in excess of two hours and deciding to call it a wrap.

It's certainly long enough and drags in places, particularly the first hour or so. But Valéry Inkijinoff (who would later emigrate to France and have a long career) is an attractive and charismatic lead; admittedly not difficult when his antagonists are such sneering stereotypes.

The film also benefits from some fascinating period detail about Mongol customs; such as the trip by the British commandant to a lamasery in Tomchinsk. Apparently, although there was some dissent amongst a faction of the Buddhist monks, Pudovkin's Mongolian advisor eventually convinced the Grand Lama to assist with the filming, and even managed to get the date changed of a religious ceremony to accommodate the production.

Friday, 25 March 2011

AFED #84: The Iron Giant (US, 1999); The Incredibles (US, 2004); Dir. Brad Bird

I'd originally intended for this to be a review solely of The Iron Giant but decided taking in The Incredibles as well would make for both an interesting comparison between traditional and computer animation, and also how director Brad Bird made a successful jump across to the newer format.

I'm highlighting Bird, because as the writer/director it's reasonable to consider him the guiding creative influence behind the two films, but it's notable that when he made the move from Warners to Pixar he took the Iron Giant's animation team with him. Inevitably a prolonged period of adapting to the new medium ensued, but the final result (The Incredibles) represented a visceral and stylistic leap forward in Pixar's house style after the more sedate Toy Story franchise, et al.

Given that it's been sitting amongst my dvd collection unwatched for a few years now, I'd not appreciated The Iron Giant was released as far back as 1999 and that Ted Hughes, whose celebrated children's tale The Iron Man it loosely adapts, had served as a creative consultant. Relocating the story to late fifties America, it wisely dispenses with the original's outlandish 'space dragon' chapter and focuses on the relationship between the robot and the boy, Hogarth (here christened Hogarth Hughes) in a story that's ostensibly a homage to Cold War sci-fi, with a big dollop of E.T. thrown in for good measure.

Hogarth is a lonely boy who lives with his single mother Annie (Jennifer Anniston) in the small town Rockwell (presumably a nod to Roswell) on the Maine coast. One night he discovers a giant robot trying the devour the local power station. The pair strike up a friendship and Hogarth sets about educating the child-like giant in the ways of the world.

He finds an accomplice in in beatnik artist (and scrapyard owner) Dean (smoothly voiced by Harry Connick Jr), who helps with satiating the giant's desire for metal. But meanwhile villainous government agent Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald) is hot on the trail of sightings of a monster. When he finally extracts the evidence he needs Kent calls in the army, but it turns out the when antagonised the giant isn't always so benevolent.

It's a perfectly judged little story, with a poignant ending that milks sentimentality, but not excessively so. Yet what really distinguishes the film is the obvious affection for the period and wealth of incidental details. At school Hogarth's class watches a public information film about what to do in the event of a nuclear strike (shelter under the table and you'll miraculously survive getting atomised), while on tv he sees a film that looks like homage to Fiend Without a Face. Even the animation is evocative of an earlier time.

Many of those observations might equally apply to The Incredibles. Although it's far grander in scope and ambition, Bird's superhero comedy is almost of game of spotting the various references; the most obvious influences are the Fantastic Four, Watchmen and the Bond series but at one point he even throws in a nod to Battleship Potemkin!

As somebody who hasn't watched many CG animations (I'll try and fit in one or two more Pixars before the year's end) it's fascinating to watch how the challenge of three-dimensional rendering is negotiated. I still incline to the view that the rendering of characters is at times rather 'blocky', as though they've been assembled from shapes, and there's a really cringeworthy moment late on when one of the characters descends some stairs that illustrates just how difficult it remains to capture human movement.

But animation is such a kenetic medium that the flaws are easily overlooked and they've always been part of the charm. Where The Incredibles really distinguishes itself is the scope and ambition of the production; this is a big, brash blockbuster (a $90m budget, no less) that just happens to have been animated.

Pixar had already developed an appreciation that you can mix broader comedy with more sophisticated wit, but Bird's script takes it that step further. There's such a wealth of cute lines here that it would be impossible to catch them all on a single viewing; home video is certainly a blessing in that regard. Bird has commented that the story was inspired by his own travails in adapting to parenthood and the way that wizened cynicism gradually yields to pure fun and adventure would appear to mirror that catharsis.

Ultimately though I return to the details and references for the source of the film's pleasures. From the opening 'footage' of a young Mr Incredible being interviewed through to the appearance of the Underminer (if you know the Fantastic Four then you'll get it) then it's a great ride.

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

AFED #81: Wavelength (Canada/US, 1967); Dir. Michael Snow

What I find fascinating about avant-garde cinema is how angrily some people react to it. I was reading a few of the comments to a ten-minute extract of Wavelength posted on Youtube and they often say more about the person responding than the film itself.

"What a weird piece of shit."

"If this film were a race,﻿ I'd support it's genocide."

"I'm all for the art of cinema...but it﻿ has to have a point!"

Let's pick up on the last one, because although Wavelength may not possess a plot per se it clearly has a point, which is to draw attention to the film-making process in itself and our preconceptions of what cinema is or should be. We're so conditioned to audio visual experiences that are narratively driven that many of us don't pick up on the devices through which this effect is achieved.

Wavelength isolates one of these in particular, the camera zoom, and compels the viewer to relentlessly focus upon it. Inexorably, over 45 minutes, the camera closes in from the view of a drab apartment to a picture of some waves mounted on the wall.

At first it's accompanied by background noise from the street outside but this is supplanted by a drone that gradually increases in pitch. There are other tricks, such inverting the image to a negative, and the double and overexposure of the film creates a hallucinogenic effect that leads the viewer to question their perceptions and draws them into a highly subjective experience.

There are four brief 'human' episodes. At the beginning a piece of furniture is carried into the apartment and left. Shortly after two women sit and listen to 'Strawberry Fields Forever' playing on the radio. Several minutes later after some banging and commotion a man stumbles into the shot and collapses, dead. Finally, a woman makes a telephone call to report discovering the corpse. All the time the camera continues its zoom.

One can hardly 'watch' the film in any conventional sense since so little actually happens. Rather Wavelength is creating a space and inviting us to fill it with our thoughts, even if that's purely boredom. Whether you succumb to its mesmerism or find yourself planning what to have for dinner that evening, it's all good.

Where I think people often misunderstand avant-garde films is to think that they exist in opposition to mainstream cinema, instead of as a counterpoint. By taking an atithetical approach avant-garde film-makers rely as much on what's absent as their actual formal content.

It's also naive to think it's undertaken with po-faced piety. I don't know much about Michael Snow - although he's become highly regarded as a virtuoso multi-media artist - but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he enjoys regular movies every bit as much as the next man. The notional concessions to narrative with a 'murder' seem almost to play upon this, like a reductionist version of Rear Window or the ambiguous mystery of Antonioni taken to the limit.

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

AFED #80: Themroc (France, 1973); Dir. Claude Faraldo

If yesterday's film Bigger Than Life represented an affront to civilised, bourgeois values, then superficially Themroc should have society's moral guardians calling for martial law.

The trouble is that while Claude Faraldo's satire takes iconoclasm to its logical extreme, it does so in a manner that favours the ridiculous over the subversive. The result is an oddity that might be novel, even mildly amusing, but doesn't pose much of a threat from the margins.

Michel Piccoli, an actor whose name might as easily be a byword for seventies art cinema, stars as the eponymous anti-hero; an atavistic factory worker. Living in a dilapidated tenement with his nagging mother and a girl who's apparently his sister; Themroc's existence is clearly one of repetitive daily grind. After a confrontation with his boss at work he snaps and returns home to start tearing apart the flat and bricking up the entrance so he can live like a modern-day caveman.

Before long Themroc is inspiring others. He's joined first by his sister, with whom he breaks the ultimate taboo, and then by a woman across the courtyard is emulating him by smashing up her apartment. Down below the police are taking steps to deal with this antisocial insurrection, but Themroc and his followers laugh it off. To add insult to injury he even takes to killing them to roast on a spit in his flat! By the end of the similar incidents elsewhere in the vicinity suggest that our neanderthal revolutionary has started a city-wide uprising.

The film's most notable characteristic is that the story is told without any intelligible dialogue. Themroc grunts, groans, chokes and laughs but he never articulates. Even the brief utterances from other characters are comprehensible, which I suppose at least dispensed with the need for subtitling for the international market. It's primitive cinema in the most literal sense; foregrounding the visual and redolent of the great silent comedians.

It all makes another Piccoli social comedy of similar vintage, Marco Ferreri's infamous La Grande Bouffe (Blow -Out), seem subtle by comparison. As a critique of modern society Themroc has more in common with the lunatic zeal of underground comics than the absurdism of Beckett or Ionesco.

Friday, 18 March 2011

AFED #77: Rozmarné léto [Capricious Summer]; (Czechoslovakia, 1968); Jiří Menzel

What's this, another Czechoslovak film already? Indeed, but I'll make no apologies for my endless fascination with cinema from that corner of Europe and have just come into possession of a pile of films from there, hence my choice.

My journey into Czech cinema didn't really begin until three or four years ago. It could have been different; I'd first encountered Jiří Menzel's debut film, Ostře sledované vlaky [Closely Watched Trains] in 1995 - as part of a season of 100 films the BBC were showing to commemorate the centenary of the moving image - but for whatever reason it failed to impress. Although wry humour pervades, it's stark monochrome felt bleak and depressing and I had no stomach for a coming of age drama that morning I watched it as a nineteen year-old.

So although I've watched dozens of Czechoslovak films since then, I've steered clear of Menzel's work despite its canonic position in the New Wave. Today's film could be seen as an attempt to redress that, but in truth it was a more or less arbitrary choice.

As the title suggests Capricious Summer is a melancholic, ironic little comedy centring around Antonin (Rudolf Hrušínský), a dissolute middle-aged proprietor of some public baths (basically a lagoon) somewhere in provincial Czechoslovakia in the not-too-distant past. Antonin spends his days chewing the fat with his friends, the retired Major Hugo (Vlastimil Brodský) and Canon Roch (František Řehák) and forbearing the imprecations of his attention-starved wife, Kateřina (Míla Myslíková).

The languid lives of these petit bourgoisie are disrupted by the arrival of a traveling funambulist, Arnoštek (played by Menzel himself), who gives them a display of his virtuosity (much to to Kateřina's admiration) and extends an invitation to his show that evening. There Antonin and his friends encounter Anna (Jana Preissová), Arnoštek's beguilingly beautiful young assistant.

Remarkably Anna is reciprocates Antonin's advances and he lures her back to the bathing huts that evening, but although she's seemingly willing Antonin, through either conscience or impotence, is unable to consumate and spends the night massaging her feet. When Kateřina finds them together she's predictably irrate and goes to seek solace in the arms of Arnoštek.

The remainder plays out in the the same dreamy tone of sardonic whimsy and let's just say that by the end normality has been restored, Antonin and his cohorts are a little older and wiser for the experience and the entertainers carry on their way.

It's difficult to imagine a more wistful piece of film-making and at just 74 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome. Menzel's direction is beautifully paced and nuanced; he has a gift for finding the perfect shot and shot length to evoke the sentiment without drawing attention to his style. Like all of his work it's an adaptation of a novel (by Vladislav Vančura) and Menzel has always considered it a point of principle to remain faithful to his source.

Yet casting himself in the key role of Arnoštek, Menzel leads us to naturally draw parallels with the film-maker's role and that of the tightrope walker. When, later in the film, he falls from his rope the spectators feel less pity than smug satisfaction. It might as easily be an allegory for the ambivalent relationship we have with celebrities to this day.