Dionysos

"In medieval Europe, it was customary for households to choose their ‘King of Fools.’ The elected person was expected to preside over merriment for a short period of time, overturning or parodying social or economic hierarchy... When the short reign of the King of Fools ended, the usual order of things was restored: the King of Fools returned to his subordinate occupation, while the status of those superior to him was reinstated..." (J. Spence: "Mao Zedong"). This beautifully shows all the "civilization" that the white man brought with him as that famous "burden" - a civilization that evokes in people the need for the Middle Ages. A feeling of helplessness, which leads to only one path - illusory escape. And when Rouch says that the rituals of the cult in question are just a reflection of our civilization, everyone can deduce that it also means that the need for illusory escape from reality did not end with the Middle Ages...

The slow pace of minimal action is filled with apathetic characters constantly waiting for an unpleasant resolution in a house that should be a model of a warm family idyll were it not for the behavior of one of the children. At first glance, Nathalie’s angel, even without her physical presence in most of the film's plot, "floats" in it like a black moth coming from the future and paralyzing the present. The indifference of the characters is only broken by the arrival of a strange wanderer. The film may not want to convey any message, and perhaps we are just meant to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of the house and its inhabitants. However, it is also possible to interpret a message about the growth of indifference and violence in an increasingly automated and alienated society (e.g., the washing machine, the educational system), as presented in the form of a radio broadcast of a pursuit of two teenage murderers, whose counterparts roam the screen in a slightly younger representation. It is thought-provoking in this regard that the male characters in the film are more emotional and action-oriented (Depardieu, the teenage murderers) than all the female characters, who, however, as mentioned above, will also "mature" to this stage. This is perhaps Duras' unintended contribution to the ongoing process of women's emancipation in society... The formal playfulness (repetition of the scene of the school interview, allusions to diegetic and non-diegetic music, and the camera and mirror games) is enjoyable, but after appearing sporadically, it is no longer further developed.

Aware viewers immediately see in the human struggle of moral principles and cruel utilitarian conventions a typical example of the "schizophrenia of communist totality" or something similar, as if it only existed in barbaric communist Russia (and the Third Reich, pushed into the same, no less ideological, category of "totalitarianism" as the USSR for current ideological reasons). When we dream the dream that we could only have been truly evil in some sort of past life and somewhere else, we no longer have to fear that we could really be evil today - liberal democracy and the free market inherently exclude that! Fortunately, the Russians knew and know from experience that all social systems are bad, and that is why they can make such good films. The motive of perestroika here lies in the fact that the virtues and principles of good communists and citizens of the USSR (whether we think they are good or not, or real or not, as presented in the film) were betrayed by Stalinism and its carriers, but not defeated. This was largely achieved, although of course not completely, through the deadly war, which, along with late post-war Stalinism, helped suppress the older honorable principles of the revolution. Perestroika thus aligns itself with these ideals, personified in the film by the Komsomol youth, the youth of the party, and the whole USSR, which was torn apart by Stalinism and then Brezhnevism before perestroika came. In politics, this found reflection in Gorbachev's return to Lenin.

We actually have two axolotls here, one conditioning the other, and together they form two sides of a great film. Bruno Ganz as a deserter from his naval duties, as an emigrant from his true homeland, tries to anchor himself in a new country. At sea, there is only a tiny chamber and infinity beyond it, while on land, it might be the opposite. Love is also infinite, and furthermore, "the female body is so wide." However, the axolotl, "disturbing time and space with its silent indifference," disturbs him both at sea (here it is necessary, which is why we can speak of an occupational illness that our hero has inevitably transferred onto land) and on land (the Mexican axolotl is an amphibian...). Love also needs time and space. The other axolotl is the film footage shot by Ganz, which, with its melancholic silent beauty, is not only a reflection of its creator but also a great intermediary between the unity of form and content achieved by Tanner in this film.

The opening quarter-hour passage is already full of ideas and dynamics - the flashforward of the end of the robber gang is presented to us as a flashback of the narrator/detective, who also gives general information about the growth of crime in Milan in the form of interviews (e.g., in a cinematically interesting form of thought reconstructions of typological cases, which the detective only comments on with voice-overs, which are eventually supplemented by the actual reconstruction, which he is personally present at). The flashbacks (actually flashforwards) are inserted into this fast-paced introduction, and by following the panic of the Milanese, the viewer at first has no idea what storyline he or she will follow, until eventually the main story axis crystallizes. This story is already told in a conventional way, and it is interesting (whether you consider this a plus or a minus) that we do not return to the documentary style at all in the end. Dino De Laurentiis has always been able to raise money and here he indeed raised enough money, so the crowd and action scenes are certainly not embarrassing, quite the opposite.

To end your war when Europe has lived in peace for a generation, to start living normally, or to die in exile in a futile struggle, to be at home again, to be human again. Erotic scenes as a symbol of liberation from the duties and virtues of a professional revolutionary. Affection for Nadine is an example of an attempt to escape from her current life - Nadine is also called Nana (see Zola), in addition, she calls Diego (Domingo) "Dimanche," which means Sunday. On Sunday, one does not work, and the famous Nana from the novel does not need to be introduced. The film is once again endowed by Resnais with a multitude of premonitions and above all premonitions. They beautifully illustrate the protagonist's uncertainty about the future – the many flashforwards (from which the viewer expects to be provided with an adequate glimpse into the future as it is "truly" going to happen, or happened, since the story, in order to be fully filmed, had to first happen and occur just as it did...) end somewhat differently during the course of the story than we originally expected, and in the way the protagonist imagined. Well, the future in both the film and reality often ends differently than we desire. For bored viewers, it should be noted that they will not find a garrote or anything similar in the film.

The traditional Rivette enthusiasm for theater is very noticeable here, and in this film, the theatrical elements are even more valuable than the cinematic ones. The story itself is quite boring in terms of content and storytelling style, essentially definable as a description of intrigues and revenge in the court of a "Great Woman." However, the somewhat uninteresting hidden struggle between two women (also filmed in ahistorical low-cost art sets) fortunately includes the interaction of theatrical art, which is strongest in moments when it is relatively free from the plot itself and finds its purpose within itself - for example, the movement scenes, rehearsals of theatrical performances, dramatic readings of original Tudor texts, etc. The film is also divided into five acts, following the pattern of dramas, and is further divided into a number of oddly combined chapters (for example, Act I: 1; followed by I: 2,3 - I: 4; then I: 5,6,7,8,9 x Act II: 1,2 - II: 3,4,5). I did not understand the system, but at least there was something to think about when the plot did not stimulate any intellectual activity. Although it does not work out exactly, it seemed to me that the number after the slash indicates the number of characters that appear in a given scene (at least for a certain prevailing time) on the screen, and the nominal value of the numbers only signifies their order in the current act. But perhaps this is nonsense. If someone knows the answer, please write to me, thank you.

Godard as a postmodern Master of Film deconstruction, both the deconstruction of image meanings and words. That is, what shapes human reality if it were not actually a constructed fiction? Or, as stated in the introduction, a person escapes from fantasy into reality (whose basis can only be fantasy), from Nature into Metaphor (the names of the two chapters of this film). This is another Godard film to prove to us that our phantasmic reality consists only of randomly assembled fragments of images, sounds, and sentences, whose meaning becomes perfectly empty and incomprehensible when taken out of their established context - until we put them together into a new unity. Even though that will only be a reflection of our inner consciousness, moving in metaphors, concepts, and abstract meanings that separate us from the real world. However, the dog does not suffer from this, as Rilke already knew, and therefore man can discover the lost Nature/reality through the perspective of an animal, the only perspective from which man can observe the external world and not just his internal, conscious world (the world of fragments of words and sentences, fragments of films and books). All you need to do is follow the basic pairs: love and death, suffering and that world. And especially Godard's dog. /// Jean-Luc Godard again follows the trail of the point at which every totalization shatters, the point where infinity opens up - whether it is the infinity of possible paths of society, the past, and the future, images (...) - and with it, freedom. /// Otherwise, at 84 years old, Jean-Luc Godard has more ideas with form than any Hollywood "god." Examples of this include demonstrating 3D by allowing a dialogue between people sitting behind each other (who would normally overlap in 2D) or by splitting the image and then allowing it to merge again (creating another alienation effect, which he has been exploring since the beginnings of his work). /// I saw the film in both 3D and 2D in the movie theater - definitely seek out the 3D version because, without it, one of the three Godards is simply missing from the screen.

Pialat is a master of realism in both a positive and negative sense. Realism is also used to describe a French painting movement in the mid-19th century. It aimed to faithfully capture the surrounding world using expressive means, often taking inspiration from the folk, rural environment (hence "realism"). Some of the most well-known representatives are G. Courbet, J.F. Millet, and others. Does that not mean much to you? Do you prefer impressionism, expressionism, cubism, etc.? These are the movements that freed themselves from the shackles of mimesis and did not just try to imitate reality but rather interrupt its seemingly obvious flow and go further in those unsettling gaps than the most faithful empirical experience can provide. The same goes for Pialat - you look at his work and say to yourself that everything is exactly as it is in reality. That is, of course, "true art" (art in the sense of masterfully mastering the defined subject) and one must take their hat off to him where myriad other directors have tragically failed. On the other hand, Pialat will never receive five stars from me precisely because his expressive language belongs to the century before last. He never surprises or gives more to a person than they already knew because reality is known not only to the artist but also to the viewer...

A story that demonstrates that sometimes fiction can be the truth of reality and that the night-time alcoholic retreat into the world of fiction can be a form of therapy for the soul and a way (or at least an attempt) to come to terms with one's own past mistakes. Reality offers the old man nothing but a false game of pretense, which we, as viewers, only fully see through thanks to our previous immersion into the old man's imagination. Within it, he can seek revenge on his (cold is a weak word) son (the great Bogarde) and attempt to reconcile with past traumas. Yet what surprises the viewer is often the rather humorous approach. Nevertheless, it is a depressing story about a man losing control over his body, his loved ones, and ultimately, his memory and imagination. The characters on the screen are largely presented as determined by an external power (the will of the story's old writer-narrator), reminiscent of Resnais' subsequent film My American Uncle, where the characters are determined physiologically or psychosocially.