Ukraine is Not a Brothel [2013)

2013, eh?

What happened the next year?

Let’s get our organizations straight.

Because, as this documentary elucidates, the money just COMES IN.

Anonymous.

[a story for another time]

Is George Soros a “fan” (benefactor) of FEMEN?

You bet your damn ass he is.

But as a wise person has said: it is not what we know in our gut, but what we can prove that matters.

When it comes to tracing transnational, criminal conspiracies (aka “color revolutions”).

What happened in Ukraine in 2014?

Let’s meet our players (and their ilk).

FEMEN.

Ukrainian.

Фемен.

Lots of similarities between Russian and Ukrainian language.

But don’t trust me.

Try Duolingo.

Wanna read Russian news?

I do.

Because our news (the bullshit aggregated on Drudge Report) is globalist propaganda.

I want a new propaganda (to dérive Huey Lewis).

Wanna read something other than Russia Today (RT), ITAR-TASS (aka TASS), Pravda, or Sputnik (all four of these are good sources)?

Then you’re gonna have to learn Russian.

And this conflict ain’t going anywhere.

Unless we all get incinerated (which I would say there’s about a 30% chance of right now…as things stand).

So sound out your Cyrillic.

FEMEN.

I almost stopped watching this film as soon as I heard the word “patriarchy”.

Dog whistle for “Marxist moron philosophy to shortly follow”.

But I stuck it out.

For you guys.

And not because the tits were that great.

Because they weren’t.

Relocated to Paris (as this film delineates).

Founded in Ukraine.

Famous for their activities in Ukraine.

Anna Hutsol.

Looks like a fucking man.

But kinda cute.

Murmansk.

Oh, to be a professional “activist”.

Have you seen these cunts (men too!) on Twitter?

They have the word “activist” in their bios.

What kind of Jane Fonda imbecile would self-identify with that word?

And think about this.

Those cigarettes they are smoking (these “activists”)…some poor schmuck in the Philippines is paying for that with his donation.

Or, more likely, George Soros routed some money through multiple shell organizations to pay for those cigarettes.

Why?

To destabilize Ukraine.

Why?

To, in turn, destabilize Russia.

It’s the kind of bullshit our CIA does.

Which begs the question:  does George Soros work for the CIA?

Indeed, does George Soros OWN the CIA?

What about Klaus Schwab?

Does the CIA work for Klaus Schwab?

Officially?

Unofficially?

In essence?

Anna Hutsol.

Jewish (big surprise).

An “economist”.

Yeah, right.

And I’m an architect.

I have to hand it to FEMEN in one sense.

They are masters of public relations and publicity.

Much like Fauci, er, Zelensky.

FEMEN does not seem to be too knowledgeable about prostitution (the traditional kind…not philosophical prostitution [they are masters of that!]) in Ukraine.

So let’s help them out.

You gotta go back a little bit.

To the first “white slavery” in Europe.

To Belgium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slave_trade_affair

Frame of reference.

Why did Putin invade Ukraine?

Demilitarization (to protect Russia and ethnic Russians in Ukraine [the latter of which are being subjected to genocide in Donbass at the hands of the neo-Nazi Ukrainian goverment {courtesy of the Ihor Kolomoyskyi/Igor Kolomoisky/Kolomoysky-funded neo-Nazi Azov Battalion}]).

https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-crimes-committed-ukrainian-nationalist-volunteers-grows-269604

IMG_7897

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS60927080220150505

IMG_7898

Denazification (to protect the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine who are being subjected to genocide [as outlined in objective #1]).

Destruction of U.S.-funded biolabs.

Human trafficking (stopping the cesspool Ukraine from providing girls [many underage] to the illegal sex trafficking industry both in Europe and around the world).

DDDH.

Demilitarization Denazification Destruction (of biolabs) Human trafficking (interdiction).

This final point (the interdiction of human trafficking occurring in and emanating from Ukraine) has not, as far as I’m aware, been thus far ideated by the Kremlin.

But it goes without saying.

The same forces (Kolomoysky) that fund the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion are likely to have their fingers in the human trafficking (sex trafficking) pie.

Kolomoysky is Jewish.

Yet he materially supports (funds) the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

Does that strike you as strange?

Does it make you rethink your assumptions about Jewish “choir boy” (cantor) Zelensky???

I am not accusing Kolomoysky of doing anything other than being guilty of being (a Jewish) funder of neo-Nazis in Ukraine.

But I will say this:  it appears that a good many Ukrainian girls end up as sex slaves in Israel.

You decide.

HistorySlavery

IMG_7969

IMG_7970

IMG_7971

IMG_7972

https://t.me/deathwishpauly

Sacha Baron Cohen can joke in his TV series Who is America? about Eastern European girls being smuggled en masse into Assad’s Syria aboard yachts.

Is it because this activity is common knowledge?

Why did Sacha Baron Cohen take the role of Mossad spy Eli Cohen in The Spy?

Strange role, no?

Is SBC a dual-citizen?

Why has he become so humorless as of late?

He’s become [drumroll] an ACTIVIST.

How disgusting.

And how strikingly-similar to Jim Carrey.

It’s almost like these guys are nervous about something.

What.

Were they hanging with Epstein on Little Saint James?

Or at Zorro Ranch??

Or on Lolita Express???

Let’s get back to what FEMEN never once (!) talks about in this titty-flashing movie.

Their ostensible raison d’être.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Ukraine

There is an effort to hide this.

As if Ukraine is more advanced–more civilized when it comes to stopping sex trafficking (when exactly the opposite is the case [as Putin knows, it is the epicenter–the cesspool on his doorstep]).

IMG_7973

IMG_7974

IMG_7975

IMG_7976

The Thailand of Europe.

Sure.

Czechia has problems too.

But Ukraine appears to be ground zero in Europe (as regards the number of young women and girls [and boys!]) that they supply to the international illegal sex trade.

Buying and selling persons.

Remember James Alefantis and his Instagram?

What were those strange pictures of porcelain dolls with price tags?

Why post that?

And those pictures of stacks of rubber-banded Euros?

Why post that?

Some kind of joke??

I kinda don’t think so.

It may be a joke (funny to the author [Alefantis]), but it is not truly in jest.

…but I digress.

https://dcpizzagate.wordpress.com/

Stay.  On.  Target.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_tourism_in_Ukraine

IMG_7977

IMG_7978

Anna Hutsol was detained by the FSB (Russian security service) in November 2012.

The year before this film was released.

And a mere two years before the U.S. government and a George Soros NGO engineered the coup in Ukraine.

The “revolution of dignity”.

They had already had the “orange” revolution.

Running out of colors.

And “revolution of dignity” sounds slightly less-absurd than “chartreuse” revolution.

Anna Hutsol was deported from Russia upon attempting to enter the country via Saint Petersburg in November 2012.

Deported back to Paris.

Her point of departure.

Soon afterwards, the homegrown FEMEN would leave Ukraine for France.

Anna Hutsol was denied asylum in Switzerland.

Because she is a political operative.

And not a genuine refugee.

That is plain to see.

By 2013, FEMEN was featured in multiple films (including the French television production Nos seins, nos armes!, the documentary Everyday Rebellion, and the film currently under consideration).

Indeed, three films came out on FEMEN the same year:  2013.

The year before the U.S. (Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt acting as point people [not to mention John McCain]) overthrew the government of Ukraine.

In 2014, a fourth FEMEN documentary appeared (Je suis FEMEN):  fourth in two years.

Was this group really that inspiring?

Did any of these filmmakers (our director Kitty Green, Caroline Fourest, Nadia El Fani, Arash T. Riahi, Arman Riahi, and/or Alain Margot) receive funding from any NGOs?

If so, which NGOs?

They wouldn’t happen to be Soros (and/or Schwab) -connected, would they?

Oksana Shachko died in 2018.

In Paris.

She was only 31.

Unlike Hutsol, she was actually born in Ukraine.

Hutsol moved to Ukraine from Russia at age seven.

Shachko hung herself.

Ostensibly.

She was from Western Ukraine.

This is important.

This is where arch-Ukrainian-Nazi Stepan Bandera was from.

Shachko went from wanting to be a nun (age 12?) to becoming an atheist (age 14).

What caused such a precipitous change in this young Ukrainian woman between the years 1999-2001?

It was likely her enrollment in the free university of Khmelnytsky at age 13.

That’s where she appears to have been met with radical feminist indoctrination.

Keep in mind, FEMEN has not only spawned documentaries.

There are also tomes by the likes of Galia Ackerman, etc.

It is purported that the “security forces” of Vladimir Putin attacked Shachko multiple times.

When?

Where?

How?

How was this proven?

Where is the proof that Putin sent anyone after her?

What was Shachko’s relationship with the French group Front National?

[now known as National Rally]

Shachko had a solo art exhibition in Paris in 2016.

In 2019, it was reported in Elle that this was not Shachko’s first attempt to hang herself.

Alexandra Shevchenko was also born in Ukraine.

Also in Western Ukraine (the land of Ukrainian Nazi Stepan Bandera).

It should be noted that Hutsol, Shachko, and Shevchenko all grew up in the same town:  Khmelnytskyi.

Population:  approximately 275,000.

There was a FEMEN protest in Moscow against Vladimir Putin in December 2011.

FEMEN have protested in Belarus.

Also in 2011.

Inna Shevchenko (not to be confused with Alexandra) cut down a Christian cross in Kiev with a chainsaw in 2012.

Now where have we seen that activity before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=uHMHPQY3BmE

Incidentally, Shachko appears in this film in a hat with a cutesy-pink hammer and sickle on it.

Kitsch?

Or do these morons want to go back to communism???

Inna was born in Ukraine.

In Kherson (in the south).

A Black Sea port.

In 2013, Inna was granted asylum in France.

When was the Orange Revolution (about which I spoke earlier)?

2004.

In the aftermath of an election followed by claims of corruption and electoral fraud.

Sound familiar?

What happened?

The Supreme Court (of Ukraine) ordered a revote.

Americans were not so lucky.

Our SCOTUS is itself obviously corrupt.

Hence their inaction on the 2020 election (which Trump clearly won).

So we are now stuck with bumbling dictator Biden.

Mandate Biden.

What other colors of revolution have there been?

Let’s line them up:

Philippines “Yellow Revolution”:  1986

Papua New Guinea “Coconut Revolution”:  1988-1998

Czechoslovakia “Velvet Revolution”:  1989

Yugoslavia “Bulldozer Revolution”:  2000

Georgia (Tbilisi) “Rose Revolution”:  2003

Georgia (Tbilisi) “Second Rose Revolution”:  2004

Ukraine “Orange Revolution”:  2004-2005

Iraq “Purple Revolution”:  2005

Kyrgyzstan “Tulip Revolution”:  2005

Lebanon “Cedar Revolution”:  2005

Kuwait “Blue Revolution”:  2005

Belarus “Jeans Revolution”:  2006

Myanmar “Saffron Revolution”:  2007

Malaysia “Yellow Rally”:  2007-2016

Moldova “Grape Revolution”:  2009

Iran “Green Revolution”:  2009-2010

Kyrgyzstan “Melon Revolution”:  2010

Tunisia “Jasmine Revolution”:  2010-2011

Egypt “Lotus Revolution”:  2011

Bahrain “Pearl Revolution”:  2011-2014

Yemen “Yemeni Revolution”:  2011

China “Chinese Jasmine Revolution”:  2011

Russia “Snow Revolution”:  2011-2013

[notice that China and Russia (who are now aligned due to moronic U.S. foreign policy) were hit back to back:  coincidence?  I don’t fucking think so.]

Macedonia “Colourful Revolution”:  2016

Armenia “Velvet Revolution”:  2018

Lebanon “October Revolution”:  2019-present

Bolivia “Pitita Revolution”:  2019

Belarus “Slipper Revolution”:  2020-present

Do you notice how the USA isn’t on there?

It should be.

I would call it Coronariots.

Inna and Alexandrea Shevchenko are not related.

How did these two meet?

On VK, of course! [VKontakte (Russian social media platform)]

Enter DJ Hell.

Inna was arrested in Enschede, Netherlands for cutting down “wooden” (read Christian) crosses.

She was protesting the arrest of Pussy Riot (remember this name).

Inna got asylum in France in 2013.

Le Figaro‘s Saturday supplement Madame Figaro named Inna as one of the world’s most iconic women in December 2012.

Inna thinks that “homophobes” and “fascists” are “extremists”.

She lumps them all together.

But are FEMEN “extremists”?

The implication is, “Of course not.”

Indeed.  

To watch these women flail like LeBron James when they are arrested only attests to the hysteria that drives their actions.

They are performers.

And not very entertaining ones.

They are shrill.

Annoying.

And most certainly guilty of (were it to be directed at any other religion but Christianity) hate crimes.

Desecration.

Sacrilege.

In 2015, Inna was speaking in Copenhagen.

She was discussing the “illusion” of “freedom of speech” in Western Europe.

As she was speaking, a terrorist opened fire in the lobby.

Wikipedia leaves out the identity and motivation of this terrorist.

Was he (oh, I don’t know) MUSLIM???

And if so, was he acting AGAINST these fucking stupid stunts of FEMEN?

I would say that the probability is not negligible.

Inna once stripped nude on Al Jazeera before the feed was cut.

But the context was particularly appalling.

The interviewer had just asked, “Which is better for women, nudity or the paranja?”

Paranja = Central Asian version of burqa

This is very offensive.

This is offensive to Arabic speakers.

This is offensive to Muslims.

Why should a non-Arab, non-Muslim such as Inna be granted “asylum” in France for pulling these kinds of stunts worldwide?

Why doesn’t she and her band of merry strippers stay in Ukraine and fight for the rights of women and girls?

Why not?

Because they don’t fucking care.

Because FEMEN are fake.

They are a tool.

A can opener.

If it isn’t Soros slipping money into their bank account, it is someone of that ilk.

All of these “color revolutions” need a spark.

Strangely, the list above (from Wikipedia) also doesn’t include the “Revolution of Dignity” which occurred in Ukraine in 2014.

These are the infamous Euromaidan protests.

Much more violent than the Orange Revolution (where only one person died [of a heart attack]).

2004.

2014.

The revolution was restarted.

Tried again.

Inna Shevchenko studied journalism.

Can you guess who has published her?

CNN, Huffington Post…

Inna is apparently against all religion (like the late-Shachko):  Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.

Those are the only ones she singles out.

What about Buddhism?

Hiduism?

No mention of those.

Only the Abrahamic religions seem to be in her sights.

Inna seems to be fighting religion more than she is fighting sex trafficking.

I thought, “Ukraine is not a brothel”?

Maybe ease up on bashing religions and do some fucking research about sex trafficking.

And if you have done the research, Inna, then fucking talk about it!!!

Instead of just shooting your mouth off about how RELIGION is so oppressive to women.

What about the Ukrainian women and girls who are sold as sex slaves?

Do you think they wake up every day thinking how oppressive RELIGION is???

Of course not.

FEMEN are fucking fakes!

Yana Zhdanova.

Donetsk Oblast.

One founder from Eastern Ukraine.

One from Southern Ukraine.

And three from Western Ukraine.

Yana and other members of FEMEN were expelled from Turkey in 2012.

Maybe if FEMEN had remained in Ukraine (and had stayed focused on helping rape victims, for instance) they would actually be making a positive difference in the world?

As it is, they are just being used by their backers (funders).

FEMEN made their pro-abortion stance clear in April 2012 with their protest in the bell tower of Saint-Sophia cathedral in Kyiv.

Another moronic stance.

A death cult.

And the strumpet cheerleaders of this death cult.

Do you think dead little babies are cool?

Apparently FEMEN do.

They want to HELP women by making sure women can KILL their unborn children.

That is not revolutionary.

It’s stupid.

It’s not noble.

It’s disgusting.

As you might expect, FEMEN seem to particularly despise Lukashenko (President of Belarus).

This is somewhat understandable.

Was Lukashenko installed by way of a rigged election?

Many say he was.

I do have sympathy for electorates whose voices have been squelched by election fraud.

But once again, FEMEN make no sense.

WHY don’t they like Lukashenko?

The reason is not apparent in their ill-thought-out slogan, “Respect, KGB, UEFA.”

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

In other news, there is a mosque in Kyiv.

Back to Lukashenko, at least FEMEN got their point across with the slogan, “Stop Dictator”.

They have a point.

Lukashenko has been President of Belarus since 1994.

That is a bit long.

28 years.

But Belarus has had to deport FEMEN on a notorious occassion.

It was rather brutal.

But the message from the Belarussian KGB was clear:

“don’t come to our fucking country.”

Did FEMEN come back?

No.

FEMEN really hate Christianity.

Their protests in Ukraine make this clear.

Why protest the 1025th anniversary of Orthodox Christianity in Kyivan Rus’?

Why not protest sex trafficking??

I thought, “Ukraine is not a brothel”???

Protesting Christianity is the kind of bullshit Klaus Schwab would support.

Or ethnic Jew George Soros (who doesn’t believe in God [according to his 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft]).

My guess is that Soros and Schwab want to dispense with religions.

Because religions involve morality.

Ethics.

And these communist eco-Nazis (Schwab and Soros) will not be able to effect their Great Reset without seriously weakening organized religions.

But guess what?

They already did.

What was closed down for much of the past two years in the USA?

Churches.

What was open?

Casinos, etc.

In December 1, 2013, Yana protested in front of the Ukrainian embassy in Paris (a country which gave her asylum in 2014…apparently urinators need protection from those upon whose images they urinate) by urinating on photos of Victor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych would be overthrown in a U.S.-led coup the following year (as evidenced by the leaked phone call between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt).

Three weeks after peeing on Yanukovych in Paris, Yana went to Brussels where her slogan was, “Putin is the killer of democracy.”

What was “the great uniter” Joe Biden’s first act as President?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/world/europe/russia-biden-putin-killer.html

Joe Biden absolutely went to the Rex Tillerson school of diplomacy.

Had Trump not fired Tillerson, the U.S. and North Korea would have fought a nuclear war during Trump’s Presidency.

In 2012, Yana attacked the patriarch Kirilll of Moscow and all of Russia at the airport in Kyiv.

What an offense!

Let’s be clear.

These dumbass “smash the patriarchy” bitches are not being metaphorical.

They actually want to deprive Russian Orthodox Christians of their dignity.

Imagine if the current Pope wasn’t a communist cocksucker.

What if Yana had attacked him?

Even so.

It’s one thing to call someone a “communist cocksucker”.

It’s another to physically assault him.

I have no love or respect for Pope Bergoglio.

Because he is a fucking sellout.

He is a goddamned communist prick.

But I would never attack him physically.

I do, however, reserve my right to insult him in writing.

I love Catholics.

I am a Christian.

Make of that what you want.

I reserve the right to rail against false idols such as Pope Bergoglio in a manner commensurate to the prophets of old.

I’m not a prophet.

I’m not overturning a table in the synagogue.

But I will tell you this:  Jesus was a bad motherfucker.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2qWeZD9gk2V3dmadKOUmeE?si=b707102754b04c0a

Wars happen.

Wars are fought.

There is a time to stand up.

Putin is, in my opinion (considering all the intel I have consumed), doing the right thing in Ukraine.

Putin is fighting against the insidious influence of globalist tools like FEMEN.

By the way, what was Yana’s slogan when she attacked the patriarch?

“Kill Kirill.”

What an insult.

Indeed, more than an insult.

A threat of violence.

An incitement to violence.

To anyone who heard those words.

An instruction.

I would never say such a thing about Pope Bergoglio.

I hope the Pope confesses his sins and turns from his communist cocksucking ways.

I understand shock value.

In this small sense, I respect FEMEN.

But in the grand scheme, I think what they are doing is evil.

Perhaps they are just stupid.

And greedy.

And vacuous.

Yana protested in Lithuania in 2013.

This was a key event in starting the Euromaidan protest.

These dumb bitches want to be a part of the European Union.

That’s why they flee their homeland and post up in Paris.

Meanwhile, they say very little about how Ukrainian girls and women are bought and sold across Western Europe and the world.

So these fucking bitches are fake-ass sellouts.

They just want the fame of protesting some dumb bullshit.

They suck Soros cock all day long.

Metaphorically, of course.

Because Soros has no cock to suck.

His demon cock fell off long ago.

Same with Satanist Schwab.

Speaking of Nazis…

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/02/investigative-reports/schwab-family-values/

And:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=OT1Qn6COp6Y

What is it with these Nazi Jews?!?

Do they think the Holocaust didn’t happen???

I think the Holocaust DID happen!

There!

Take that, you pricks!!

I think Nazis are the scum of the earth.

Fuck Nazis!!!

So what am I:

anti-semitic?

No, I don’t think so.

A white supremacist?

Nope, try again.

I’m just a dude who thinks the idea of super-rich Jews having benefitted from families who collaborated with the Nazis (Soros and Schwab) is disgusting.

And I think the idea of the 2nd or 3rd richest person in Ukraine (Igor Kolomoysky [also a Jew]) funding the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion that is committing genocide (the past eight years) against the Russian-speaking population of Donbass is disgusting.

Have these three Jews no shame?

Particularly Kolomoysky.

Soros has no control (nor any remorse) about how he went around with his fake godfather and confiscated the property of Jews during WWII.

Schwab seems to have no remorse about his father having profited immensely by being a Nazi collaborator in Germany during WWII (assuming the above link is accurate).

I am just scratching the surface with FEMEN.

The same can be done with Pussy Riot.

Or Marina Abramovic (who is “standing with Ukraine” [blech!]).

FEMEN and Pussy Riot are largely-interchangeable globalist tools.

Abramovic is their godhead.

These are not good people.

These are spirit-cooking, sick fucks.

This is not what Putin wants in his neighborhood.

And I don’t blame him.

LGBTQ, BLM, and Antifa are all globalist tools.

And their members (cult members) are useful idiots.

Dupes.

In 2014, Yana destroyed a wax figure of Putin in Paris (a country that gave her asylum [from what?!?] that same year).

Her message when she destroyed this wax figure of Putin?

“Kill Putin.”

Tell me, Yana, how does this message help the young women and girls of Ukraine who are being funneled into international sex trafficking rings?

How does “killing Putin” or “killing patriarch Kirill of Moscow” help young Ukrainian women and girls who have been SOLD and have ended up as sex slaves in places like Israel?

Does Putin run Israel?

I don’t think so.

Does Putin run the international sex trafficking market?

I don’t think so.

And if he does (and that is your message [which I doubt it is]), then prove it.

Get your feeble brain to log on to Mother Jones.

I don’t even care if the link is bullshit.

Just let me know why on earth you think killing Kirill and Putin will help young women and girls in Ukraine.

Are Kirill and Putin buying Ukrainian women and girls?

I kinda doubt it.

But I bet there are plenty of Parisians (your country of “asylum”) who are.

Plenty of rich French customers.

Is Paris a brothel?

Is France a brothel?

And where are the women and girls in those brothels from?

Not, perhaps, from your country which you abandoned (Ukraine)???

2014.

Yana vandalized the Vatican by taking the baby Jesus statue from the Nativity scene in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica while shouting, “God is woman.”

Yeah.

Great.

Real productive.

Hey Yana, you dumb bitch:

is the Holy Spirit male or female?

Think on that as that sweet Soros money rolls into the FEMEN bank account.

I agree with Yana and FEMEN on one point.

Bring on the titties!

I have no problem with women going topless.

That’s something I can get behind.

-PD

 

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story [2003)

Happy Birthday to Thora Birch, my favorite actress of all time!

Yes, I know…I know.

A film critic whose favorite actress is a young 35-year-old whipper snapper???

Yes.

That’s alright.

Laugh at me.

If the question was, “Who was your favorite classic Hollywood actress?,” then I would answer, “Lauren Bacall”.

But I said favorite actress of all time.

You can search my “Thora” category here on my site for why exactly this actress is my favorite.

Because otherwise, we’re going to be here all day.

And I have a movie to review!

One of my favorites:  Homeless to Harvard.

It is, indeed …The Liz Murray Story, but I will be using the shortened title hereafter for brevity’s sake.

It is my contention (and I have made the point elsewhere…probably on this very site of mine) that Thora Birch produced a trilogy of acting performances which are more-or-less analogous to Bob Dylan’s classic trilogy.

Let’s start with Dylan.

The three (at unity from a similarity of intense expression):

Bringing It All Back Home

Highway 61 Revisited 

and

Blonde on Blonde

And now the Thora films which correspond in my mind:

American Beauty

Ghost World

and

Homeless to Harvard

Sure…Birch didn’t direct these films.

But her acting is so strong, she might as well have.

By this point she was no longer a prodigy.

She was a mature actress.  A master of her craft.

And the story here is one to really sink teeth in.

[In which.]

We recently touched on homelessness here in the review of Alicia Vikander’s stellar turn as Katarina from Till det som är vackert.

Pure.

But the esthetics of Homeless to Harvard are different.

This isn’t European arthouse.  It’s a Lifetime made-for-TV film.

But don’t go running anywhere!!!

This is as gritty as any Lou Reed tale.

And it’s all real.

Too pure.

Heroin addict parents.

Mother schizophrenic.

Blindness.

Genetic.

Mother with HIV.

Father with AIDS.

Vice versa ice Ursa.

Father in homeless shelter.

Mother wielding knife.  Vomiting.

Alcoholism.

Really appealing, eh?

But you gotta stick with it.

This isn’t Darren Aronofsky mise-en-scène.

It’t not, “Let’s win an award at Sundance.”  Or, “Let’s sweep at Cannes.”

It’s more like one of Aesop’s fables.

It’s the message, man!

And so first, let’s honor the director.

Peter Levin.

Who knew a television film could be so artful?

Well, when you combine the history of Histoire(s) du cinéma with the precedent of Twin Peaks, you should know by now that television can produce good stuff.

Hell…

Your TV can even WATCH YOU! (as per WikiLeaks Vault7).

But I digress…

The weeper (no masonry) sob story…had me crying in my Junior Mints…we must attribute to the excellent writing of Ronni Kern.

Who the hell is Ronni Kern?!?

Male?  Female?

I’ve had less trouble finding the gender of completely unknown foreign movie people.

But Kern is pretty invisible on the Internet.

And maybe there’s a point here.

  1.  It doesn’t fucking matter.
  2. You should judge someone on their work, not their gender.

Hopefully Ms. Birch will appreciate this flash of liberalism should she read this review.

[I’m not holding my breath]

But we have just celebrated International Women’s Day.

And the fact that Birch’s character here is a “feminist” is a running pseudo-joke.

Which brings us to the performances.

Michael Riley is stellar, stellar (I know…) as Liz’s father Peter.

Kudos to the styling department.

That beard.  And that hair!

Crazy, man, crazy!!

But Riley’s performance is really special.

It touched my heart.

Long ago.

When I first saw this film.

And dare I say, this movie made me appreciate my own family.

It made me miss my folks.

And so I salute Peter Riley and Lifetime and all involved for that effect on my heart.

Jennifer Pisana is really fabulous as the young Liz Murray here.

It’s an unenviable task.

To precede Thora Birch’s entrance.

But Pisana is indispensable to this little masterpiece.

Those sweaters.

And the full pronunciations…”Mommy”…”Daddy”…

Ms. Pisana affects the necessary naïveté to be juxtaposed against the sad schizophrenia of Kelly Lynch (who plays Liz’s mom).

And Lynch is great.

Think Cries and Whispers.

[cris et chuchotements…(( (( ((…et chuchotements]

Robert Bockstael does a fine job as Liz’s teacher David.

Very convincing.  Excellent craftsmanship.

Makyla Smith is piquant in her depiction of Liz’s best friend Chris.

[God…the Magic Marker…and the pine box…fuuuuuuck]

Yes, friends…this is Lifetime Television.

So the brisure (bonjour, monsieur Derrida) is “crap”.

“Crap happens.”

Whoa…watch thy mouth, Kelly Lynch!

So again…Peter Levin does a fantastic job shoehorning a true X-file into PG territory.

We see a syringe here and there.  A tourniquet.

Riley cleaning a spoon.

But the real heartbreak is Wheat Chex with tap water.

Yeah…

Hello Gummo.

Ellen Page has a small role here.

And she’s good.

Fine actress.

But we’ve been waiting to roll out the big gun.

Thora Birch.

On this, her birthday, I am only just now getting towards a handful of reviews honoring her unique thespian gift.

What to say?

That every look is magic?

That every glance is gold?

That she has crafted her microexpressions in solitude…and wielded them like an Arthurian sword for the duration of this flick?

Yes, yes, and yes.

[and an Oxford comma]

Because kids take it for granted.

Rich kids.

Harvard.

Penn.

Princeton.

Maybe…

But even more so the lesser ivied walls.

I won’t name names.

But the spoiled kids.

Not turning in homework.

Bragging about shortcuts.

Those, ultimately, will be life’s losers.

But Liz Murray worked her butt off to get into Harvard.

From sleeping on the B Train.

Four years of high school in two.

And Thora Birch has worked her butt off too.

She hasn’t gotten the roles her talent deserves.

But the roles she has gotten, she has largely smashed out of the park.

Like the Babe Ruth of leading ladies.

And so there are other actresses I admire.

But Thora Birch was the first.

The first to give me that magical feeling which only Neil Young has adequately described:

“I fell in love with the actress/She was playin’ a part that I could understand”.

Happy Birthday, Thora Birch!

And may all your days and films be filled with the joy which you have put into the world through your cinematic brilliance.

-PD

Till det som är vackert [2009)

This is a perfect, imperfect film.

Like Russell’s paradox.

And I hope director Lisa Langseth won’t go all Frege on me and jump out a window.

Ah!

You know…

I have spoiled nothing.

And my words are almost completely inconsequential.

But similar things have been said about La Règle du jeu.

And I disagree with that.

In 1939, Jean Renoir made an unqualified (perfect) masterpiece with that film.

I qualified it only to distinguish from my initial example.

And so Pure (the title of this Swedish film which is currently on Netflix in the U.S.) is much like Asia Argento’s almost-masterpiece Incompresa.

I will be quite blunt.

Lisa Langseth stretches in almost the exact same dimension that Argento did with her fine film.

But the real similarity is acting perfection.

For a young child, Giulia Salerno was magnificent (really!) in Argento’s film.

And so Ms. Argento had the secret weapon.

A (very young) actress capable of cine-magic.

Ms. Langseth was blessed with more-or-less the same thing.

But even better.

[perhaps because the actress was a little older and more experienced]

Alicia Vikander makes Till det som är vackert go.

I mean, really…this is an acting performance unlike any other.

And so my only gripe with Ms. Langseth, the director, is that she stretched the story TOO FAR.

But that’s ok.

Because, you know what?  Maybe I’m wrong.

Langseth and Argento both seem to be trying to tell every story they’ve ever lived…IN ONE FILM.

Argento is the guiltier party.

For most of Pure, Langseth sticks to a taut plot.

Buttressed by Vikander’s exquisite acting, the sum total is ecstasy.

And so, I find myself reacting against the Hitchcock tendency in two films.

Some directors NEED a good dose of Hitchcock.

Wes Anderson, for example.

That guy is so saccharine…that when the fingers come off in Grand Budapest, we finally have a filmmaker.

But Langseth and Argento are telling GRUELING stories throughout (in Pure and Misunderstood, respectively).

And so the heavy bass note…the one which when slammed births the 9th harmonic…it doesn’t work here.

Because the tritone.

To progress through the harmonic series.

And resolve on a tritone.

It takes a special auteur to do such.

And these two ladies are not the dodecaphonists to do so.

They have not worked out a coherent system to justify their heart-ripping atonality.

But fear not.

Pure is so, so, so worth watching!

This is as close as a film can get to masterpiece while still being flawed.

And it’s so very close, I’m wondering whether the flawed one is me.

[no doubt]

Let me correct the record (ouch…David “Scumbag” Brock)…

We get noodles with ketchup.

I mean, this film is Gummo real.

So I want to give some BIG compliments.

Till det som är vackert is the best Swedish film ever made by anyone not named Ingmar Bergman.

In fact, it’s BETTER than several of Bergman’s films.

Shall I name names?

Pure is worlds (WORLDS) better than Fanny and Alexander.

Bergman was in poseur mode.

That flick is so overrated.

And Lisa Langseth totally smokes (eats the lunch of) Bergman.

Further, Till det som är vackert is (in my humble, masculine opinion) the greatest feminist film since 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days…and in some ways EVEN BETTER than that timeless masterpiece.

And so, in general, I bow down in worship to Pure.

We have homelessness.

We have mental illness.

We have resilience.

Naturalism.  Grit.  The bird-soul of music…

The only thing we needed was an editor.

To say.

Cut.

About 20 minutes before the end.

Because Ms. Langseth wants to give us redemption.

She just seems to have her Raskolnikov in the wrong pocket.

It’s ok.

I’m the daftest son of a bitch on the planet.

One last thing…

This movie moved me so much.

The bulk of this film.

Did something to me.

Therapeutic.

And sublimely enlightening.

And so I thank God for Lisa Langseth and Alicia Vikander.

God bless you.

Thank you for making this kind of art.

As Nick Cave sang,

“It’s beauty that’s gonna save the world now”.

-PD

Vi är bäst! [2013)

IF you want to see a bogus, bollocks feminist film, watch Free the Nipple.

But if you want to see the real thing…a really empowering, touching story, then check out We Are the Best!

IT’s in Swedish.

So you’ll have to use your brain.

And your eyes.

Unless you speak Swedish.

But it will be well worth your time.

Vi är bäst! isn’t trite acting from a bunch of pseudo-provocateurs who just want to take their shirts off.

Nej.

This is the story of three 13-year-old girls.

None of them fit in.

Everyone tells them they’re ugly.

One of them is ostracized for being a Christian.

[now THAT’S punk!]

But it’s the story of three girls who come together and do the greatest thing possible:  form a band.

Music!!!

And let me just say this:  the acting is fucking fantastic!

Mira Barkhammer plays Bobo.

For me, she is the star of the film.

She is the outcast of the outcasts.

No make up.

No cool haircut.

She’s searching for her identity.

But she’s so smart.  So truly unique!

She wears these little wire-rim glasses.

From one perspective, this film is her search for what’s behind the mirror.

Director Lukas Moodysson made a masterpiece here.

Bobo…

The name…

I think of Boris Diaw.

The whole scenario is aw-kward.

But so beautifully so!

And yet Bobo is not perfect.

Far from it.

It’s a team effort.

And teams, especially when they are ad hoc and organic, are inherently dysfunctional.

The actress who puts the dys in dysfunction here is Mira Grosin.

But she too is so wonderful in this film!

She is the inspiration.

The first one out on the limb.

The rebel.

The loudmouth.

She inspires her other two bandmates to fly their freak flags high.

But the most enigmatic is Liv LeMoyne:  the Christian.

Director Moodysson is so deft in his handling of this dynamic.

LeMoyne’s character [Hedvig] has long, beautiful blond hair.

[At this point it is appropriate to address a strange form of class relations in Sweden:  hair color.]

When I used to think of Sweden (which I did rarely), I would imagine everyone as a blond.

Perhaps the American vision of Sweden is a socialist paradise of blond bikini models.

At the very least, blondness seems to be the defining characteristic in the American popular imagination regarding Sweden (as far as I can tell).

This isn’t a scientific study, you understand…

But it is important to point this out.

The snottiest (in the stuck up, snobbish sense) characters in this film are mostly blonds.

The little girls who call Bobo and Klara [Grosin] ugly.

It is really heartbreaking.

These two BRUNETTE girls endure such humiliation throughout this film.

And so it’s no wonder that they want to start a PUNK BAND!

But they can’t play.

Like, not at all…

Their first halting efforts are in the vein of The Shaggs.

No, worse.

And that’s where the Christian comes in.

Hedvig is an accomplished classical guitarist.

It is, indeed, much like the story of Garth Hudson’s joining The Band.

Lessons.

So to speak.

Bobo and Klara are astounded at Hedvig’s talent.

They lament that they’ll never be as good as their gifted new friend.

But Hedvig is all encouragement.

It is [pardon the expression] a match made in heaven.

And so three misfits (for different reasons) band together (literally) and take on the cock rock ridiculousness of bullies like youth-center-rehearsal-room-“stars” Iron Fist.

The message is astounding.

I haven’t seen a film which does such honor to the idea of feminism since 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

But there’s no ulterior motive here.

This isn’t a George Soros production.

This is the real thing.

Just three young people (who happen to be female) wanting to make some noise in their world.

And we see how beautiful punk music is.

IT’s a catharsis.

Like Sonic Youth.

And we remember the true geniuses of the genre (like my hero, the late Alan Vega).

But we also remember the maxim:  “three chords and the truth”.

Hedvig’s got the chords.

[Ah…harmony!  What a concept!!!]

But Klara has the attitude.

And Bobo has the intellect.

They learn from each other.

“Here.  Stay on this note.  Good.  Now move to this note.”

“Punk is about rebellion.  It’s not about the school talent show.  We’ve got to keep going.  It’s a fight.”

“You really need to change your hair.  Do something fun!  Express yourself!  Cut loose!”

Those are my translations of action, not dialogue.

But I can’t stress enough how great these three actresses are in this film.

Mira Barkhammer in particular is a prodigy.

But, as in the story, the trio is inseparable.

And for this kind of cohesion, we have but one place to look in thanks:  the auteur.

-PD

Viaggio in Italia [1954)

We push ourselves so hard.

For what?

So that we may see beauty.

For me, it’s this.

Though I can barely hold my eyes open, I see it.

I see what Godard saw when he was just a lad.

A very mature film from Roberto Rossellini.

But by mature, we don’t mean sexual.

Actually, more nuanced than that.

A celebration of woman as human being.

A celebration of Ingrid Bergman as auteur.

Just as much as her husband, the director.

It’s there.

The collaboration.

And it’s unlike any other film I’ve ever seen.

Perhaps…

she fell in love with his genius.

The war trilogy.

We have talked about the great films.

Just after WWII.

Rome, Open City.

Germany, Year Zero.

And enfin…

Paisan.

[in not quite that order]

These are our English names.

But Journey to Italy is a weird feast of linguistic absurdity.

“…you shameless hussy”.

It’s like this, see…

George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman are British,

but they’re speaking Italian.

This was so the Italians didn’t have to read subtitles.

But then George says to a prosititute,

“I don’t speak Italian” (or something)

in English…WHEN HE’S BEEN SPEAKING ITALIAN FOR THE FIRST HOUR OF THE FILM!

And then there’s the Italian tradition of postproduction.

No live sound.

In this film, no ambient noises.

It’s like George and Ingrid are touring Italy in a fucking Tesla Model S!!

And a bit of dialogue.

And a clip-clop and a cloche.

Get out of the way, donkey cart!

Such that at a certain point, we wonder whether Roberto was exploding not only genre (to reference James Monaco), but the Italian version of “the tradition of quality” against which the French New Wave set themselves so polemically.

🙂

It’s possible.

“Do you think I’m insane,” asked Elon Musk.

No, of course not.

You’re South African like me.

But at the heart of this film (this is a film review, right?) are the same marital arts (!) which made Benatar sing love is a battlespace.  What?

Before Godard and Karina, it was Roberto and Ingrid.

And the tension rubs.

Gimme friction, said Tom Verlaine.

And Paul Verlaine said some stuff which was ignored.

And Rimbaud shot his hand.  Or ran guns.

Back when Abyssinia.

Main point is this is beautiful film.

Plain simple.

And it’s no accident Mr. and Ms. Joyce.

 

-PD

 

Sommaren med Monika [1953)

This film hits a depth like no other.

Summer with Monika.

I should have said, nothing is more persistent than love.

There.

And the ups and downs of love are painted by Ingmar Bergman in their greatest glory and most miserable despair.

Two kids rebelling.

Such freedom.

There are moments which presage Pierrot le fou.

On the beach.

In the most carefree sense. And also in the Neil Young sense.

Two characters attracted to one another.

One freewheeling.  The other a more reserved being.

Several dreams interwoven.

Security.  Tenderness.  Camaraderie.  Courage.

Harriet Andersson is the star.  Shining bright.

Ice.

Pursuit of the elements.

“Slip inside my sleeping bag” as ZZ Top sang.

Two kids against the world.

Such a sparse recounting.

Quitting jobs.

The stress.

The harassment.

Bergman showing the unique pressures of young women.

But everything is so sweet.

With a girl not afraid.

To take the role of the man.

Not let life pass by.

This film made an immense impression on me when I first saw it.

Almost like Tropic of Cancer shuffled with Tropic of Capricorn and compressed to a pamphlet.

But it feels epic.

Film does that.

We can feel everything in an hour and a half.

We can shake our asses in three minutes.

Get the message in 30 seconds.

But life intervenes.

And we have to make some ugly choices.

We must pawn our scant comforts.

And aspire to one day again achieve “augmented survival”.

Debord again.

Monika wants nothing to do with it.

Her Henry Miller streak is longer.

And it’s pretty ugly.

Though she played the most beautiful hippie before beatniks even snapped.

Up and down.

Gives you the bends.

Few films capture the razor’s edge of pleasure and pain…the excruciating detail of ecstasy and sad panic.

Bergman was a master.  Along with Wild Strawberries, this is his true winner.

 

-PD

 

Riso Amaro [1949)

Robert Bresson said, “I believe in cinema.”

In English?  Like that?  I don’t know.

But it is truly the thought which counts here.

Because I believe in cinema.

Cinema.

Maybe it’s my favorite word.

My religion.

The great omnist hymn of all lands.

Of all the hands which have pitched in to turn the wheels of the mind.

And so this film, Bitter Rice, is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

Not because it is flowery and seductive. [It’s not flowery.]

Not because there are perfumed stars in diamonds. [There’s no perfume.]

But because it is real.

As real as cinema gets.

Not the hyperreal of Harmony Korine’s Gummo.

Not even the transparent real of documentary footage.

But a real which is uniquely Italian.

To say neorealism is to cheapen the whole creation.

This is a masterpiece by director Giuseppe De Santis.

You must live through the rain to understand it.

You must have had no hope to fathom the slop.

You must wade in de water.

Because you are seeing Italian opera.

There’s no speech in the field.

No talking.

Workers are in the prison of labor.

Same kinds of rules.

But if you sing, that’s tolerated.

And so it all must be sung.  In the fields.

Puccini famously bragged about his facility.

Give him a grocery list, he said.

And Willie Sutton had his hygiene and motivators covered.

Even if he never uttered the famous phrase.

He ENJOYED robbing banks.

And, yes, that was where the money was.

And so the field workers not only display humanism.

Not only embody feminism.

But engage in a little triage worthy of Sutton’s law.

Taking the poor girl to the embankment.

[They’re all poor.  This is 1949 Italy.]

It’s not psychotic fugue, but psychogenic fugue.

Fugue state.

Thuringia.

The Axis Powers played a very bad game of chess.

Stretto was the shit hitting the fan.

“Ride of the Valkyries” mixed with heavy artillery mixed with vocalizations of agony.

Ristretto is what you get at Starbucks.

But, dear friends, don’t stop after the first half.

Let it finish.

Let it bleed.

Shine a light.

For Silvana Mangano.

Sylvania.  Someone has etched the word “hope” into the light bulb’s socket.

In the Schwarzwald.

The deep eerie mystery of the woods.  And Hitler’s aerie.

[Godwin golden mean]

34 21 13 8

almost Fibonacci but ending

aND nothing more Italian that an actress named Doris Dowling.

But that’s the way it went.

Direct descendent of opera verismo.

Our old favorites Mascagni and Leoncavallo.

But Netflix hasn’t gotten at the heart of what this means.

“Strong female lead” or some such rubbish.

Nice try…

But Riso Amaro blows all those venal pigeonholing strategies out of the water.

Cinema is not my God.

Cinema is my religion.

 

-PD

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [1975)

Lots of commas.

And sub-clauses.

And finally Santa.

Enfin.

That something happens in this film is a miracle.

It is a monument of nothingness.  [hang on]

A monument of boredom.  [wait for it]

A truly glorious feminist film.  [truly]

Quite simply, this is one of the hardest films I’ve ever tried to watch (much less review).

I was familiar with the late Chantal Akerman’s style at least a bit.

[may she rest in peace]

Nothingness.  An obsession.

It’s closer to the Warhol end of the spectrum than Bergman.

Uncomfortable shots.  The time-image.

We don’t have time to read about the time-image. [Bergson]

Deleuze.  De loser.

We.  Miss out.

And so when we are thrust into a film such as this…

There ARE no films like this.

The nausea of which Sartre spoke.  Wrote.

I knew that Akerman admired Godard.

She was already in my good graces for that.

But I almost didn’t make it through this 3-hour-21-minute film.

From one J.D. to another.

Jeffrey Dahmer to Jeanne Dielman.

Dielman’s life is just as horrible.

She might as well work the 11 p.m. – 7 a.m. shift at a chocolate factory.

Belgium.

Every activity she caresses.  Like finest lace.

And so we see the Godard of Vivre sa vie.

That is the premise.

The “ooh-la-la”.

But it is much more Marina Vlady than Anna Karina.

2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle.

Washing dishes.  Interminably.

That lifeless, empty stare.

Perhaps it is Brecht.

Distancing.  Reality.  But symbolic.  Unreal.

Verfremdungseffekt.

Epic.  201 Dalmatian minutes.

Force the issue.

We dummies still worship Delphine Seyrig.

In the same way we worship Anamaria Marinca.

Because we’re sick of Western women…sick of soul-sucking Western culture.

Sick of the Easter bunny.  Sick of Santa Claus.

We want the East.  The Eastern bloc.

And further East.  Chinese acting.

Brecht.

Delphine from Saussure.

Cup and Saussure.

Such amazing acting by Seyrig.  To not act.

To act as if she wasn’t being watched.

To shine shoes and drop the brush.  [An event!  Here…]

To disturb the cream bottle.  Precariously returns.

To not apologize to the camera.

To get her apron caught…

The hardest button to button.

And the adrenaline-pounding rush of shopping for buttons.

Buttons.  Those little things which go through eyelets.

Like trying to find the correct shade of mauve.  All over town.

And so in the end it ends as an action film.

You think I kid.

But Akerman must have had a soft spot for Chabrol…(viz. Hitchcock).

Let’s play the quiet game for three hours…and see if it will drive you nuts.

Doniol-Valcroze pays a visit.

But it doesn’t matter.

What matters is the can of Ajax on the side of the tub.

The green and red.

Might have my brands wrong.

Tiny daggers of color.

Nowhere.

But there’s one.

 

-PD

 

Čovek nije ptica [1965)

It makes sense that Man Is Not a Bird was Dušan Makavejev’s first film.  It has that first-film “breadth” to it.

Where Ljubavni slučaj ili tragedija službenice P.T.T. (Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator) struck with absolute precision, Čovek nije ptica meanders about a bit in search of the appropriate film language. 

[N.B.  Wikipedia spells “bird” in Serbo-Croat for this film as “tica”.  I’m not sure why that is as “tica” seems to mean nothing (whereas “ptica” means “bird”).]

Though our film is set in a strange, backwards town, the narrative is considerably sprawled.

Eva Ras (the star of Love Affair…) is here as a more minor character.  However, she is the one who most lives out the message of the title.

This film has a strange obsession with hypnosis.  There is a hypnotist, but the film starts off with a scientific denunciation of superstition.  Through hypnosis (we are told), a distressed person can be made to abandon the grip of superstition.

Back to our hypnotist in the middle of the film…he is more of an entertainer than anything.  I am not entirely sure, but I believe the initial “legitimate” hypnotist (psychologist) and the later “entertainer” hypnotist are played by the same actor.

If that is the case, then Makavejev’s later metaphor (the circus) makes more sense.  But what is really complex about this film is the layering of metaphors upon one another.  It makes finding meaning very difficult.

One “reading” would be that life is a circus.  Another reading would be that “cinema” is a circus which purports to present a more truthful version of life than what we know.

But what does that mean?

Every day we experience life is some respect.  What could be “more truthful” than our daily experience?  Is Makavejev implying that we lie to ourselves?  Quite possibly.

As film viewers (spectators), we may become immersed in a particular movie and identify with characters and stories.  In a way, WE are the fourth wall.  The fourth wall is our temporary reality.  We enter into the false reality of film.

But, film gives us a chance to observe “ourselves”.  When we heavily identify with a particular character, we are having a sort of “out of body experience”.

And this brings us back to hypnosis.

Man Is Not a Bird is a very beautiful film (in a grimy, socialist, factory soot kind of way), but it is (perhaps not surprisingly) a dark film as well.

Shot, like Love Affair…, in black and white there is something more sinister about this film than the more gentle and humorous Love Affair…  But who are we kidding?  Love Affair… is inextricably wound up with death.  What could be darker than that?

Answer:  life without life.

It is what Eva Ras experiences as she is emotionally abused and disrespected by her husband.  Her husband, as it turns out, is working a job which is so hazardous to his health that the position is being eliminated ASAP.  And that’s in communist Yugoslavia!  All through this film we see a sort of poverty which separates East from West.  The poor Eastern Europeans.  What the West would come to realize (like New York Times film critic Vincent Canby) was that the East had something of immense wealth.  If pressed, I would call it soul.

Man is not a bird (even if, under hypnosis, he believes this to be the case).  Man is also no angel.  Janez Vrhovec plays a sort of martyr in this film.  Another more light-hearted character prods him as to whether he can feel the tingling of his burgeoning angel wings (the prodding is actually quite sardonic).

Man is not a machine.  But Jan Rudinski (Janez Vrhovec), the deft Slovenian machinist/engineer, has become a slave to his job.  From Pakistan to Dar es Salaam:  Rudinski makes his comrades proud with his exceptional efficiency.

But let us return to Eva Ras.

To turn Godard on his head, A Woman Is Not A Woman.

Why do I say that?

Because the French word for wife (femme) is the same as the French word for woman (femme).

And so a whole new world of wordplay opens up for us concerning TWO Godard films (namely):

Une Femme est une femme

and

Une Femme mariée.

In the first, we could potentially have the proto-syllogisms:

A woman is a wife.

Or, conversely:

A wife is a woman.

Furthermore, we could have:

A woman is a woman (the accepted translation in the English-speaking world).

Or, on the contrary:

A wife is a wife.

It gets to be such that we assume there is some sort of “boys will be boys” idiomatic phrase in operation.  Not being a native French speaker, I cannot confirm or deny that.  But I do know that Godard loves word play.  And therefore, the simple answer may not be the intended answer.

To illustrate further we have,

Une Femme mariée.

The accepted English translation is A Married Woman, but could it not be the more perverse and thought-provoking A Married Wife?

One thing is certain:

Man Is Not a Bird will have you under its spell whether you understand it or not.  At least, that’s the experience I had.

I would add one final bit of exegesis (extra Jesus).

It may very well be that Makavejev was making a disparaging statement about the communist Yugoslavian state with his first film.  It would be like the secret messages which Shostakovich managed to work into his music (particularly the string quartets) while living in Soviet Russia.

In the hands of communist governments, art (and particularly film…after Lenin’s admiration of the medium for its uniqueness) had to represent the people.  On one side (with communist eyes) this is admirable.  From the other (with capitalist eyes) this is seen as propaganda.

Any astute capitalist would have realized that (particularly in times of war) there was not much difference from communist and capitalist propaganda.  Both economic systems availed themselves of the practice of propagandizing.

But my guess, regarding the film in question, is that Makavejev recognized his own role as a propagandist (he had no choice in the matter…either please the censors or leave the profession) and likewise saw film as a double-edged sword of hypnosis.

And so his first film is really a realization…of that power in film…that power that can drive the masses to love…or to kill.

 

-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