Návrat ztraceného syna [1966)

Black pearl.

Not black wave.

Tabu story of the south seas.

Of eastern Europe.

Some things will not allow you to name them in miniscule diminution.

Only majuscule.

Europe.

But not all Europe created equally.

Some want in, some want out.

Some have the missiles. Some have the nukes.

Maybe someone has the launch codes.

A prison of protection.

Your interbank telecommunications are swiftly fleeted from La Hulpe, Belgium.

A founding nation.

Fair of skin.

Like milk. Like lace. Like the blue veins of Delft or Roquefort.

Jesus, this is some beautiful writing.

Is it mine?

If I claim it (as it comes out of my head), will I be sent home?

And home where?

To a Turkish circus.

I am at home in words.

Inseparable from thoughts.

And the film under consideration is a masterpiece of insanity: Return of the Prodigal Son.

Director Evald Schorm was born the day after me. And died on my birthday.

Which is to say (viz.) that he lived his life in reverse. Like Midas.

Everything he touched turned to shit.

I know the feeling.

I practically invented it.

Were it not for The Hollies, I’d be a bumper sticker millionaire.

Shit happens.

Psychiatry.

And most importantly, Czechoslovakia.

Nuttier and nuttier.

Each line. Each post.

We’ve become such experts that we are worthless (Elmyr de Hory).

I couldn’t run a business if my life depended on it.

Which is to say (c’est-à-dire), I’m perfect for the job.

Any job.

Particularly a hard job.

A job of balancing.

I put my own king in check. With my queen.

From Czech mate to Czech please.

The eroticism of Czech New Wave hit pinnacle with Ostře sledované vlaky.

We closely watched. Maybe you remember.

Long before Maggie Gyllenhaal got us going in Secretary.

And so here it is Jana Brejchová.

Flirtatious. And positively nuts.

Maybe she’s the one who drove Jan Kacer bonkers.

Makes sense.

But Jan has deeper issues.

He might love his job.

But there’s nothing inside.

Something has been deranged. Rearranged.

The furniture in his head is set up for a party.

And no thoughts arrived.

Because he forgot to send invitations.

And now he just wants to watch frotolimbic TV.

But the antimacassar massacre of feng shui violation is permanent. For the time being.

Fichte and Hegel first made an assumption about time.

We are told. In good time.

Regarding dialectics.

Problem reaction solution.

Thesis antithesis synthesis.

Forget not sublation.

There is no ~~abolish~~ preserve. There is only transcend.

Riding to work in the year 2025 is a bitch when Ed Harris (Robert Duvall) decides to get all snooty.

What does Marsellus Wallace look like?

Say what one more time!

A tawdry age. False flags happening every day. Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

#1 the week Hitler died.

Or went to the Argentine version of Barvikha.

Divine right of kings…

Psychiatry.

First medicine, then further specialization.

But a different slant. (6)

Hippocratic (rule by horses) oath.

False friends linguistic jump to conclusions.

Like Novo ordo seclorum.

Spend a moment with the French emanation: siècle.

Cycle. Age. Cycles. Ages.

Still…

It moves.

-PD

3 Comments

Perličky na dně [1966)

I’ve never been much a fan of the omnibus film (or anthology film) genre.

Several directors.

One product.

But this one serves a very interesting purpose.

So far, we have only considered the work of Jiří Menzel (among Czech directors).

So now we will get to branch out a bit.

A sampler of sorts.

Funny enough, Menzel leads this whole thing off.

Start with your best speaker, they say.

Menzel’s contribution is fairly good.

It is closer in spirit to Capricious Summer than it is to the masterpiece Closely Watched Trains

Which is to say, it is largely “meh”.

But a true auteur is still engaging even when he or she is meh, and Menzel is interesting…even when he’s boring (as in Rozmarné léto).

If we want to know where the Belgian juggernaut Aaltra comes from, then we should look no further than Menzel’s short contribution on motorcycle racing.

As with all the stories in this omnibus, the author (in the literary sense) is Bohumil Hrabal.

We get our first bit of the “aging” theme in this installment.

The old man with his stories of Smetana and Dvořák.

The weird harpsichord music courtesy of Jan Klusák (or perhaps Jiří Šust).

It’s baroque, but just slightly off. Anachronistic. Neobaroque. Like Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (and just as rococonutty).

But the “aging” theme really comes to the fore in the next section which is directed by Jan Němec. Němec sadly passed away but four months ago.

In this scene we meet two old men in a hospital. It is a very touching piece of cinema.

They try to keep each other’s spirits up.

We also start to sense another theme in Hrabal’s writing: lies.

Lies notwithstanding, Němec’s segment is perhaps the most poignant thing about this film.

In the middle we get a splash of color (the rest of the film being in black and white) courtesy of the radical Evald Schorm.

What makes Schorm’s segment so beautifully jarring is the music (extremely reminiscent of Olivier Messiaen): organ dissonance ostensibly courtesy of the aforementioned Klusák and/or Šust.

We are presented with outsider art in its purest form. A painter who paints every wall in his house. It is certainly reminiscent of the one-of-a-kind Henry Darger.

Incidentally, the scene is deliciously dark humor directed at not only the bureaucracy of the Czechoslovak state but also at the legitimacy of the insurance industry.

Věra Chytilová contributes a dark-yet-dreamy vignette suffused with desperation throughout. Her use of slow-motion photography captures some very special emotions and is reminiscent of Jean Vigo’s use of the same in Zéro de conduite.

Finally, we encounter gypsies for the first time thanks to the loving depiction of Jaromil Jireš.

A Czech boy does his best Jean-Paul Belmondo before the cracked mirror near the lobby cards.

Dana Valtová might be the most convincing actress in this entire feature. Her role of the dark-skinned gypsy (who remains nameless) is quite astonishing.

And so we learn a bit more about the Czech people thanks to this defining mosaic from the Czech New Wave: Pearls of the Deep.

And little by little we learn a new culture.

-PD

3 Comments

Rozmarné léto [1968)

I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass.

This one starts out slowly.

Too long at the first location.

The river bathhouse.

The dread of boredom begins to creep in.

No girl. No gun.

Until Jana Preissová makes her first appearance.

It was unbearable.

A rainy summer.

Every day the same as the last.

In a small town.

A closed circle.

But like Fellini, the circus comes to town.

Thank God for the circus.

Cotton candy. شعر البنات

Is it girl’s hair? Pink. A one-piece pajama.

Or a pig.

It is like the sweet words of the beautiful Haneen Elhaj in Bethlehem.

Girl’s hair.

Running on the electricity of a car battery.

Spinning sugary magic.

Sandy stone (when the mirror of translate is turned upon itself).

We want to know literally what ~~Heidegger~~ Derrida was talking about.

And so it only took director Jiří Menzel two years to lose his voice.

It was perfection in ’66.

Ostře sledované vlaky.

That is the cynical view.

But we must realize that Menzel was literally walking a tightrope.

It’s not funny.

It’s not engaging.

It’s slow.

It’s effective.

By the end you see that Fellini is the right reference.

Capricious Summer (our film) bridges the gap between the antics of La Strada and the lovable freak show of local color that would be Amarcord (1973).

But this was 1968.

A very serious year.

The Czech and Slovak (respectively) socialist republics came into being the following year.

We know the legend.

Mai ’68.

All hell broke luce.

Even Cannes was cancelled.

[Cannescelled]

But what is a film festival compared to an invasion?

Before our Capricious Summer was the Prague Spring of 1968.

Lasting well into the summer.

And blooming well before winter had ended.

January 5 – August 21.

Then the invasion. The Warsaw Pact countries.

Operation Danube.

Romania (and Albania), to their credit, refused to participate.

108 Czechoslovak civilians killed.

Liberalization. Decentralization. Democratization.

Like the beautiful Anna. Fleeting.

Because the circus always has to pack up and leave town.

Our film.

Released May 24. During the Prague Spring.

Pražské jaro (or jar).

Czech. Slovak.

The only difference between my bank balance and Bill Gates’.

More zeros at the end.

Infinitely more.

Later these “Springs” would become manufactured (if they weren’t already).

Libya…

We all know about color revolutions…but the Czechs would have a textured revolution in 1989.

From velvet…we could have had the corduroy revolution (ribbed, for her pleasure), silk revolution, cotton (the revolution of our lives)…etc.

The “nonviolent” Prague Spring resulted in the deaths of 96 Soviet soldiers.

84 of them by “accident” (friendly fire?)

and the accidental/”suicide” deaths of 10 Poles.

Apparently none of the Poles died conventionally.

At least the two Bulgar soldiers killed perished from intent.

The four Hungarians all slipped on banana peels in front of Škodas.

This is the tone.

Lola Montès.

Plucking the feathers from chickens.

The chubby wife returns.

Drench the nubile.

Menzel, then, was many months ahead.

Knowing that summer would really begin when autumn usually fell.

Another 20 years before the circus returned.

-PD

SNL Season 1 Episode 22 [1976)

Elliott Gould improved.

I dished it out pretty severely concerning his first go at hosting this show, but he was much better here.

I suppose part of the lesson was to stay out of the way of The Not Ready For Prime Time Players.

But also, there’s just something unique about the format of this show (especially when it is/was done live).

First things first, however. I forgot to mention a very important part of the preceding episode. Gilda Radner’s turn as Baba Wawa (Barbara Walters) in conversation with Lina Wertmüller was high humor indeed. So, yes: a reason to back up one to episode 21.

Pushing ahead…

The highlights here are mostly thanks to John Belushi.

His performance as William Shatner in a Star Trek parody is pretty remarkable (though Chevy Chase as Spock really cracks me up).

Second, the employment of The Bees (a long-running gag on SNL) to populate a parody of The Honeymooners television show is also rather stellar. Belushi takes the part of Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason’s old role) and does quite well.

But the singular aspect of this episode is the skit involving U.S. diplomacy in Ghana. In particular, it stars Laraine Newman as Shirley Temple (aka Shirley Temple Black [aka U.S. Ambassador {to Ghana} Black]). She was ambassador from 1974-1976. The skit pokes fun at the idea that a former child star (Temple) could make a substantive difference in such a conflicted country.

Shirley Temple Black would go on to be the U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1989-1992.

What is less-clear is the role which the supporting cast plays in the aforementioned skit.

Acheampong? I don’t know. My ears were not quick enough.

But I know one thing…

Like the Lina Wertmüller skit from the previous episode, this was an attempt at far-reaching humor. In retrospect, it is very valuable indeed. I wish I could give a more cogent breakdown on the Ghana feature.

But at least I can tell you that musical guest Leon Redbone (himself also returning to the show for a second time in this Season #1) is excellent as one might expect. He is, incidentally, joined on the tuba (as he was the first appearance) by Jonathan Dorn. The combination is quite nice…just a parlor guitar and that New Orleans low end.

Less convincing is the supplementary musical act (in addition to Redbone’s two songs) Harlan Collins and Joyce Everson. To be fair, Mr. Collins gets off to a bit of a shaky start with some of his acrobatic falsetto jumps. Ms. Everson, on the other hand, is both poised with pristine singing and exquisite beauty. My main complaint is the song. It’s just not very good. It only exacerbates the situation when Howard Shore is wanking on soprano sax for a large chunk of the song (and he is).

On the other hand, the extra musical act means less of Elliott Gould. That’s a good thing (even though he had tweaked his game since attempt #1 [Episode 9]). All in all, not a bad showing.

-PD

Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. [1967)

Something draws me to Eastern Europe. I blame Romania. Thank you Romania! Yes, there was something about the ambiance which director Cristian Mungiu conjured up in 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile) which has stayed with me for a long time.

Really, it’s a rather mundane part. Near the top of the film. The goddess Anamaria Marinca traipses down the hall to find some soap…and cigarettes. The scene is a college dormitory in communist Romania (pre-December 1989). Girls in one room chat about beauty products. There seems to be a good bit of bartering going on. Marinca is mainly uninterested. Looking for a certain kind of soap (if I remember correctly). On the way back to her room she stops off at the room of a foreign student (non-Romanian) who sells cigarettes and gum and stuff. The whole film she is searching for Kent cigarettes (a few mentions of this brand). Not surprisingly, there are no Kents to be had in the dorm. She settles for something else. Perhaps. I don’t know.

She stops and admires some kittens which someone has taken in.

It is astonishingly real. On par with Roberto Rossellini.

Indeed, it might be said that all New Waves (from the nouvelle vague to the Romanian New Wave) have their birth in the neorealist films of Rossellini.

But Mungiu added a new wrinkle.

Marinca. [The goddess of whom I spoke.]

Marinca is unglamorous. No one is glamorous in 4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile. We get the impression that it is the waning days of Ceaușescu’s reign.

Times are tough. The policies of the state haven’t worked out so well. It bears some resemblance to a prison. Material items take the place of money (reminiscent of cigarettes as currency in jails).

What I have yet to define in this article is “goddess”. What do I mean by that?

Well, I’m glad you asked! Marinca (particularly in this film) is a goddess to me because she represents the opposite of the typical American woman in the year 2015. Her beauty is her soul. Her beauty is her loyalty to her roommate and friend Găbița. Her beauty is her dedication to acting. She is completely immersed in her unglamorous role…and it is eye-watering.

I have mentioned a similar impression (which further solidified my admiration for Romanian films) I got from watching Dorotheea Petre in The Way I Spent the End of the World (Cum mi-am petrecut sfârşitul lumii). This masterpiece by director Cătălin Mitulescu preceded Mungiu’s Palme d’Or-winning film by about a year (2006). I was again struck by another goddess of film (Petre) who, with the help of her auteur, created a character also in direct opposition to the meretricious, vacuous ideal of American womanhood in the 21st century.

And so it is that we finally come to the film under consideration: Душан Макавејев‘s Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator. Dušan Makavejev is Serbian. Out of deference to his country I have listed his name in Cyrillic script. Likewise, the title of the film (at the top) is in Serbo-Croatian. It is a grey area about which I am not completely informed. Suffice it to say that Croatia seems to generally use Roman letters (as opposed to the Serbian usage of Cyrillic). It is a bit like the distinction (and writing differences) between Urdu and Hindi [which I have heard described as essentially the same language, but with two different writing systems].

I prefaced this article on Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. with my own backstory concerning Eastern European cinema because it is relevant to my approach going forward.

Before coming to this, my first Yugoslav (1967) film, I opened up the can of worms which is Czech cinema by reviewing Closely Watched Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky). Jiří Menzel’s sexually-charged film poem from the previous year (1966) was a major revelation for me. And so it is that Dušan Makavejev’s bittersweet confection shares more than just a communist framing with Menzel’s aforementioned erotic portrait.

Yes, Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. is about our old film-school standbys: sex and death. I can never combine those two words (in the context of film) without remembering the ridiculously funny scene of Jim Morrison at UCLA screening his student film in Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991).

The fictional Morrison, then, would be trying to hop on a nonfictional bandwagon represented by the likes of Menzel and Makavejev. Morrison’s time at UCLA (1964-1965) not only coincided with the staggered births of “new waves” around the world (particularly in Europe), but also occurred while Morrison’s father (US Navy Rear Admiral [RADM] George Stephen Morrison) was the commanding officer of a carrier division involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Jim Morrison lived fast. Entered UCLA in 1964. Graduated with an undergraduate degree in film in 1965. Was dead by 1971. But those years in between… It’s no wonder Jim had an Oedipal complex (evident in the song “The End” [1966/1967]) when considering his father was involved in false-flagging the U.S. into a suicidal war against communism. What a disgrace…

No, the real hero in the family was not RADM Morrison, but rather Jim. He turned on the dream-switches of so many kids. To put it quite bluntly, he was part of the counterculture in America which caused kids to start giving a fuck about the world and politics and geopolitics and confirmed charades (frauds, shams, etc.) like the Gulf of Tonkin “incident”. Such a sanitary and slippery word: incident.

It fits perfectly, in that there was no incident.

But while Morrison the Younger had gone off into Brechtian pop-rock, Serbian director Makavejev was busy making Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator. It is equally stunning, for its medium, as “The End”.

Sex needs beauty. A really luscious film like this needed Ева Рас (Eva Ras). She is a bit like Jitka Zelenohorská’s character in Closely Watched Trains…mischievous, bewitching… But there is one great difference between Ras and Zelenohorska: Ras is a blond.

Though our film is in black and white, it is clear that Ras’ silky hair is rather fair (a detail which would not have escaped Hitchcock). It must be said, however, that Makavejev did not give in to the easy femme fatale portrayal when it came to filming Ras. Izabela (Ras) is a complex individual. The film tells us that she is Hungarian. She is different…other. She needs sex. She is passionate.

All the same, her portrayal by Ras is poetic and tender. Really, what we are seeing here is a tentative feminism expressed by Makavejev which would become a thundering symphony of women’s liberation in Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

And it is good. It is good for men to see these types of films. We men idolize and reify women in the West, but we don’t often enough stop to really observe the trials of womankind.

In the best spirit of socialism, this film has something for everyone…men, women…ok, maybe not children.

Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator is really an intense film. If you have seen (and made it through) Stan Brakhage’s The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (a film I, incidentally, once made the mistake of showing at a party), then you’ll be alright. For those faint of heart (I generally fall into that category), there are a couple of rough moments in this film (in the context of criminology).

In all, I am very proud and happy to have seen my first Serbian movie. As a resident of San Antonio (and fan of the San Antonio Spurs), I feel it gives me a better glimpse into the life of one of my favorite basketball players Бобан Марјановић (Boban Marjanović). I highly recommend this film…and Go Spurs Go 🙂

-PD

10 Comments

Ostře sledované vlaky [1966)

There is no precursor for this delicious film.

Closely watched trains…

There is no warning. No real foreshadowing of what awaits Miloš Hrma.

And I, of course, will not give away the game.

But let me tell you about this watershed moment in cinema.

You could say Czech New Wave. You could also say Czechoslovak New Wave.

In the case of the auteur in question, Jiří Menzel, it is the former.

The movement was already going by this point.

1966. Almost the midpoint, if we say 1962-1972.

But none of that matters too much.

What matters is this film.

Closely Watched Trains. Ostře sledované vlaky.

And so we started with Romania. A new wave. A current phenomenon. Briefly in vogue. And completely deserving of the praise.

And we made a point to look elsewhere. To Iran. Because of Kiarostami.

And now we add a much older New Wave. It is of particular interest to our first location (Romania).

In globetrotting through movies we hit some odd, beautiful destinations. Nations.

Czechoslovakia. No more. Today. Czech Republic. Slovakia. And Ukraine.

But none of this matters much either.

What matters is Miloš Hrma. The shy boy.

We know.

Intimately.

Not easy.

If the meek shall inherit the earth (Earth?), then it’s a long time in coming.

I am fond. Quoting Neil Young.

“Vampire Blues”

“Good times are coming/But they sure coming slow”

Indeed.

That is the situation of Václav Neckář’s character Miloš.

He has the delight of love. Snow in the air. Smoke from a steam locomotive. A cloud of fleeting sparks.

Our heart beats rapidly for cute Jitka Bendová. And we think of football. We try to ignore the Bond girl essence of her name.

Because she is one of the most poetic faces in cinema. No Wikipedia page for her. At least not in English.

But it is this love between Miloš and Máša which gives us hope.

An adieu from the caboose (football, football).

No doubt Wes Anderson plumbed the depths of Closely Watched Trains while searching for his own cinematic language.

In fact, the beginning of this film is very much like the beginning of every Wes Anderson film.

An exposition of characters.

Some with peg-legs.

An old crazy uncle.

A cow with too many udders.

But the most crucial is the hypnotist.

If there is a precursor to Jiří Menzel (and there must be), then it is Renoir. Renoir meets Eisenstein. And sex.

Did I fail to mention?

Closely Watched Trains is a sexual tension which can no longer be crystalized.

And thus history served us well by preserving this document of a different age.

It is a naughty film, but not by today’s standards.

It is sex…as directed by Hitchcock.

And for that it is sexier. More tense. Taut.

Consider, for instance, the stamps. Ooh la la.

If you go ga-ga for Gyllenhaal in Secretary, then you must see the breakthrough moment. In cinema.

Like the first kiss. May Irwin. Thomas Edison. But actually William Heise. 1896.

Big black maria. Something/Anything?

Yes, in fact.

First, and most importantly, the telegraphist (as played by Jitka Zelenohorská). Almost like Chantal Goya in Masculin Féminin, but better. Same year. 1966. Maybe Menzel got an idea from Godard. In any case, Zelenohorská gives one for the ages. Deliciously naughty.

And lest you run off feeling less-than-substantive edification, it is political as anything. That’s where Eisenstein comes in. A brief moment of cinematic intercutting.

And the war. Like Les Carabiniers. 1963. The Rossellini inspiration via Godard, perhaps?

But really it is a new cinema. Czech! Mind-blowing…

Sex is more erotic with a laugh. Surreal. Real. More real than real.

In a stunning final coup Menzel brought us Naďa Urbánková.

One minute you’re thinking about a girl, another you’ve been rounded up by the state security apparatus.

And then they realize you’re nuts.

And they have pity on you.

Release you into the swaying grass.

And like Chaplin you waltz off into the sunset to fulfill your destiny.

What a film!

-PD

4 Comments

Night on Earth [1991)

I’ve run out of witticisms.

Snappy beginnings.

Which is a shame. Because I really want you to know about this film.

If you don’t already.

This is called quantum writing.

It is the sentence fragment equivalent of liberal ellipses.

So tired.

The cities.

Los Angeles.

It is the first episode. Vignettes.

Seemed like a throwaway scene years ago.

Now. So prescient. Then.

So pertinent. Germane.

She’s not really interested in becoming a movie star.

People selling kidneys to get a real casting agent and she’s not interested…

Beautiful.

New York.

Lost in the world.

Pulling immigrants with the magnetism of illustrious decades.

East Germany. Dresden. Near Czechoslovakia. 1991.

My neighborhood. When I can pause for a moment and appreciate the diversity.

America. Amer-ica.

Paris.

Francophone magnet.

Another scene which ages well.

When I saw this I hadn’t been to France.

Hadn’t been to New York or L.A.

And you appreciate more. When you’ve been.

The loving portrayal. The in-between shots.

Maybe it’s the garbage can at Pink’s Hot Dogs.

A green trash bag. Liner. Someone sweeping up.

We’re blind to so many details.

And so Jim Jarmusch went and put ’em in a film.

They’re there.

The details.

Tom Waits soundtracking like Charles Ives with an accordion.

Why?

Why is it sad?

It should be funny. And sad.

It depends.

It depends on your life.

If you’ve ever had a brush with the entertainment industry, then that first scene might get you.

Might punch you right in the gut.

Not interested.

And the point is that as one girl throws it all away (from a perspective) a bloke on the east coast is just trying to get a cab.

Look.

I’ve got money.

It’s winter.

And home is Brooklyn.

It’s painful cold.

And as one family is dysfunctional in its uniquely Tolstoyvian way, another has no family at all.

None.

None left.

It was too cold to shave today.

Save the money.

Money is not important to me. I’m a clown. I just need the money. But it’s not important to me.

And there’s your artist.

A mechanic works the art of grease.

A clown suffers in the tumult.

Please. Come in. Welcome to my taxi. It is very important to me.

Long night. On Earth.

You hear about Africa every year. Annually. On average.

A famine. A plague. An outstanding war. Out standing in the rain.

We never know just how it feels to live in Nigeria.

It is furthest from our thoughts.

And then we are reminded. That Africa exists.

The continent. Does not exert itself.

Comes down to capital. LLC. Land labor capital.

To LKM. labor Kapital material.

A lot has changed since Adam Smith.

Land disappeared.

And what makes the U.S. unique compared to Hong Kong or Tokyo? Land.

Room to sprawl. Endlessly.

But I digress. As a matter of course.

In the course of one speck of matter (Earth) running rings around the Sun.

Our sun. Not up yet.

The hour of the wolf.

Brings us to Rome. Ingmar not Ingrid.

It is comic blast #2.

We survived the sadness with laughter. In New York.

And now we book a room at the Hotel Genius. [Hotel Imbecile was full-up.]

Thank God for Charlie Parker!

I confess.

I was looking forward to this humor for days. I knew the ending.

But I didn’t know my own age. In the mirror of cinema.

But, dear friends, all good things must end (and bad things must start).

“They say the darkest hour/Is right before the dawn.”

That’s the hour of the wolf.

And instead of Max von Sydow we get Matti Pellonpää.

With his Grinderman mustache.

Walrus. Circles the statue. In front of parliament?

Helsinki. Like a sinkhole. Cold. Hell sinky.

It is the end of the earth. And I only have my memories of being drunk in Kiruna. Sweden. Never made it further east.

And for a moment he just sits behind the wheel and stares off into space.

After it’s all over. As if he can see the ice-trails of orbits.

We travel the spaceways.

Every humble step of our lives.

From bakery to grain field.

But mostly streets.

Taxis. The poetry of snaking asphalt.

Sing the songs of the pavement.

Every passenger a sad story.

Every driver a priest.

-PD

13 Comments

Pravda [1969)

There are few things more difficult. More difficult. Than divining the truth as it is happening.

Happening? The truth happens. Or is.

We don’t know. Prague Spring. PRAHA.

Did you know that Ceaușescu condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia? Really.

Fascinating. We hear that name and we think bad guy. Maybe. We do.

Youthful errors. I can only affirm the brilliance of this film in absence of French comprehension.

In absence of Italian comprehension.

In absence of Czech comprehension.

In absence of Marxist comprehension.

You will notice the monolithic structures as a Western capitalist on the outside looking in.

On the inside perhaps some saw provisions for all.

Heat in winter. Food on the table. Poverty squelched or shared.

Socialism.

It explains why this film is barely in print. You must remember how radical the Dziga-Vertov Group was.

You either find it brave or you find it disgusting…like the Aden Arabie cell from La Chinoise. Juliet Berto chanting

Revisionist!

…as if brainwashed.

Skoda. Now owned by Volkswagen. How ironic?

Skoda. Founded by two Vaclavs.

There is a 20-year gap in Skoda’s history on Wikipedia. Škoda Auto. My guess is we can thank Volkswagen for “cleaning up” the history a bit. They cleaned a little too well. Now there’s a hole. And it’s noticeable.

Two shirtless fat men. Two Vaclavs? I have no idea. But these gents make it all worthwhile…shoveling dirt in front of a post office. One of the two so impressively hirsute (back and front) as to have a pseudo-shirt.

Socialism was a belief in something. The U.S. lost the Vietnam war. Little debating that. And now Vietnam is socialist (at least in name). Did the globe stop spinning? Of course not.

These are not brave details. I have been much more bold before.

Yet reason.

She was so beautiful as to make us cry.

We stood no chance.

She never smiled.

Not like the first one..

To understand Marx. To understand European socialism. To understand Russia riddle enigma matryoshka. Through the lens of Dostoyevsky. Karamazov. Religion. Culture. Vast expanses of land…

I may be at the end of the world. It may be necessary for me to take a step back.

Mmmm…to be intoxicated by something so bizarre, so rare, so taboo, and so unknowable…for now.

It is why Alex Jones’ films fail. They are artless. Had he channeled Godard there would have been no stopping his cinema.

But the spectacle is where James Clapper, much to his own chagrin, realizes that “deceit deceives itself” (to quote Debord).

TPTB have never grasped the coded messages in Shostakovich. Stylometry can only undermine a Snowden email. If that.

Like Dylan I have no big answers.

You will be punished for thinking. That.

Thought crime.

Guillotine.

Guileless in Seattle.

We are getting closer to the truth. Dangerously close.

You will know knowledge hack. Coined term. Here. Like 4’33” Cage.

Life hack. Kryptos.

Somebody forgot to take their medicine.

We can joke.

Did Ezra Pound’s punishment befit his crime? His crime? [DHS] [[VHS]]

Kino Pravda.

Should keep several good intelligence analysts busy for a week.

Several petaflops of drivel occupied.

To not be fucked with.

Moloch in Bohemia.

Practically free.

Just keep the angles which predate Orson Welles. Dziga. Vertov.

The Académie française will never accept. Their loss.

Propaganda will always show blood dripping from fangs…even if blood is dripping from fangs.

We could make a deal. He says.

Petaflops.

Liquidated.

Rights reserved, wrongs reversed.

Elision says stylometry.

Experimental literature.

This is not a film review.

Think on your sins.

Gets to feeling like a powerful shit. Ripe for manipulation.

A lot of things can happen to dog shit.

Flash tits change world.

Sure, you know what’s going on…but you don’t REALLY know.

Two-way mirror of social media. Instant fame.

We’ve been trained to utter scumbag.

” ”

Twice. de Chirico.

Yep. Someone else has caught the scent. Freud cerebral. Marx visceral.

The angles converge. Méliès. Rampling, Charlotte. Trampoline.

I need a love to keep me happy. Keith Richards said that.

It is the most fertile field of Godard study.

This key-logging software is really slowing me down.

Doesn’t matter. We take the stairs.

AIPAC, Carole King, Black Maria?!?

Now you know the key. Of a different sort.

-PD

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paulydeathwish

musician and film critic

Tag Archives: Czechoslovakia