Dionysos

My review contains a spoiler! The beginning of the 1960s and the golden years of the new wave still found Claude Chabrol in a phase where his films can be classified as "drama, in which someone (violently) dies," unlike later "thrilling murder thriller." Films about people vs. films about killers. The killer in this film appears more as a mysterious and dangerous agent of fate rather than the actual source of genre entertainment (thriller, crime) in the film. Moreover, he carries a metaphorical significance that adds value to the entire previous story. Although the story itself could stand on its own (if, like me, you love the overcrowded illuminated boulevards of Paris in the style of the nouvelle vague, and of course, also Parisians...), the death of the heroine tragically and cynically shows that there is no third alternative between superficial fleeting love (or longer-lasting love, but with a considerable amount of conformity) and true fateful love. And we have seen how the latter unfolds.

The Zen proverb states: "When it seems that the five faces of the Pentagon are impenetrable, attack through the sixth." On October 21, 1967, over 100,000 predominantly young people set out on a march targeting the symbol of the American military-political establishment, from students to black activists to hippies. Red, rainbow, and Vietcong flags were flying in the heart of the USA, which was previously unimaginable. And during the radicalized pro-communist time, the master of the documentary, Marker, left us evidence of a moment when it seemed that not only people in the USA were beginning to awaken, but also that the emerging generation was starting to change in the midst of the struggle against police batons and the main army. Change with a capital C. It seemed that the otherwise chimerical slogan from the beginning would possibly come true in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, we now know that it was truly just a chimera...

Ukraine in the grip of historical constants. As an economically underdeveloped country lagging behind developed Europe, it, along with its rural inhabitants, is forced to live in a regular natural rhythm - in cyclical time. On the historical level, there is a never-ending cycle of changes in political rulers, and occupations, and an influx and outflow of soldiers in various uniforms. Just as history can tear apart this poor country, it can also disrupt the families of its inhabitants. Forever divided and divided again, Central and Eastern Europe finds its reflection in the senseless fight of brother against brother. (In 1971, it may have seemed that the end of the worst war in history had finally put an end to it. Yet here we are again...) Thanks to all those old costumes and the folk style of life, Ukrainian films look as if they were captured in some timeless world, in a fairy-tale time, where the names of kingdoms and heroes change, but the principles and stories remain the same.

Soldiers are distributing weapons to willing civilians. What if cameras were also given to them? It would create a film that would not only tell the story of war but would be one of those who make war. At a time when napalm was raining down on Vietnam, Nhat Minh Dang was filming a real war film/warring film. The biggest surprise is that it's not a standard sentimental-patriotic-pathos-shootout-explosion war film as one would expect, but a rather intimate story about people. Of course, this can be explained by the lack of money for big action scenes. A large part of the film takes place in several rooms or military headquarters (ergo studio...), but that's not the reason. According to what I've read about the director, it's obviously intentional. We can only applaud that Nhat Minh Dang was not afraid to make a subjective film about a woman at a time when city ruins did not need to be arranged in film studios, when the sound of an aircraft was not obtained by sound engineers, but simply by opening a window and recording the roaring of a B-52…

The film was a great success at the Venice Film Festival in 1961, where it won, among other things, the award for Best Debut. It is only a pity that the author made another film, six years later, which met with a less enthusiastic reception, and in the 1970s he withdrew completely from filmmaking. Bandits of Orgosolo carries a strong neorealist trace both in terms of the story - the harsh life of the poor Sardinians filled with hard work and the struggle to survive with very little, to pay off debts, etc., as well as in terms of form, wherein lies perhaps the biggest positive of the film. The breathtaking shots of the island mountains, beautifully composed and captured in exteriors and natural light (handled by the director himself), balance out the relatively straightforward and therefore less interesting story. De Seta himself created a series of documentaries about the lives of the poor inhabitants of Italy in the 1950s, and the film is an obvious extension of this interest into the realm of feature film. Local residents also act in the film.

We are in the Netherlands. The Dutch flag: red, blue, and white. The author does not forget to remind us of this in the opening captions. We are in an apartment. We descend from the upper floor down the stairs with a red carpet and enter a room. It is dominated by white and blue. Adjacent to it is a bathroom, where red prevails over white. There are two people in the room, deathly white. Is it because they are forced to internalize the surrounding environment? Or is it a passive environment that they themselves imprint with their deadened core? The empty core of a bourgeois, under whose serious façade there remains only one living thing - primitive sexual desire, which occasionally bursts into consciousness with frenetic speed. The desire for sensual crimson = red? It is necessary to leave again, to return back from where we came, "up," away from the "low."

In the same year as Chapayev, the (not) famous First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers took place, which is considered in history textbooks as one of the main heralds of socialist realism, i.e., the metastasis of Stalin's homogenizing political line into the sphere of culture. However, anyone who expected a hero of the civil war depicted just as unequivocally and in the same warm colors as workers and peasant women in multi-colored historically inspired mosaics not only at Eastern European train stations from the time of collectivization will be disappointed. Chapayev is portrayed with many flaws (although he overcomes them with the help of the Party...), and the story is supplemented and almost balanced (!) with the plotline of the White General. He may indeed stand on the other side of the barricade (and therefore can never truly bond with his own people, as shown in his relationship with his subordinate Petrovich...), but there is an effort to depict him AS A HUMAN BEING. This fact shows that, despite its date of production, the film cannot yet be fully categorized as part of the Stalinist period...

This film shows the relationship (but hopefully not only) of Europe, specifically Scandinavia, towards the priorities of human life and dignity. In the 1960s, during the peak of the European welfare state, a faithful film about the horrors of a time when individuals had to choose between survival or dignity was created as a reminder of a not-so-distant past. Either you bend down and humbly beg for mercy or literally die among other people from hunger (or the beauty of liberal individualism). However, the film is definitely not just a simple depiction of these historical facts but also has a strongly subjective component in the main character. Is the lack of protein in his brain caused by the lack of protein in his food, therefore causing his sometimes bizarre behavior? Or is it a seed of mental illness? Personally, in the context of the film, I lean towards the first option (I haven't read the book, so I don't know if it is clearly explained there), but regardless, the viewer's attention is constantly kept due to this uncertainty.

The film already deviates slightly from amongst other Soviet films with its civilian plot about the relationship between a mother and her son, which initially creates the impression of a primary focus on the adolescence and rebellion of the young boy, but gradually involves the capricious (to put it nicely) mother, whose sadness fills the entire film by the end (the director and screenwriter are women, so the focus on the female character is only beneficial). However, the main advantage lies in the lightness and playfulness of the expressive means, which corresponds to avoiding the common Russian melancholy, fatalism, and deep thoughtfulness in terms of content (yes, despite the fact that the film is dominated by the sadness of its protagonist, that is where the art lies). Along with the attractive camera work and editing techniques, which serve better to create impressions than words alone and the plot, the film resembles (the 10-years-delayed and Soviet) French New Wave.

A Hungarian contribution to postmodern skepticism. If we consider Sparkling Winds a reference framework (as well as movies from the wasteland, which Season of Monsters resembles in its overall style), we can see the obvious bitterness and tragicomic irony over the waning of revolutionary (or mass) historical energy that propelled the "Heroes" of these films in both positive and negative senses. In the 80s, all that remains for us are individualistic "heroes," satisfied with the increase in the number of cars and TVs per capita, who gather at the site of their youth only to reminisce. However, this is not entirely the case because Jancsó did not give up on his efforts to search for a better society, and yet the characters embarrassingly striving for its fulfillment are merely tragicomic figures (the dispute between the scientist trying to achieve equality of people through brain operations and a philosopher advocating natural aristocratism with the elimination of the incapable...). The resulting skepticism about the possibility of achieving a just future is demonstrated on the content level by the constant relativization of all alternatives (spoiler: equality through the operation of people - murder - the idea of ​​catastrophe as purification (everyone must die) - everyone dies X nothing happens – Jesus will come (!) and resurrects everyone - the philosopher and scientist kill Jesus - Jancsó concludes the film with a quote from the Bible, which is clearly meant sarcastically given the situation...). The relativism of the content thus spills over into formal relativism and eclecticism.