Representing Czechoslovakia: The Cremator (1968)

From http://www.nzbmovieseeker.com/images/poster/0063633.jpg

Dir. Juraj Herz

A cremator Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrusínský), already disconcerting in his attitude and strive for "goodness", becomes more unhinged when, as the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia, he is pushed to become a "greater" citizen, more so when a friend and Nazi party member points out the restrictions that would be put on him for marrying a Jewish woman and having children with her. The Cremator is a disturbing, disturbing film, further proof to the incredible filmmaking that grew out of Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, creating films complete different in cinema from any other nation. Existing in its own world as well as ours, jumping forward in time continually as we see the world through Kopfrkingl's worldview entirely, The Cremator shows the worst in humanity, in a man who is only obsessed with the incineration of dead flesh and sees no difference next to the living, through an expressionist, abstract style. Like a lot of Czech cinema, there are so many types of flourish used, from fish eyed lens to cut-out animation opening credits, that it's difficult to list it all in a short, cohesive review. It straddles a fine line whether its technically a horror film or not, but the foreboding dread one feels pounded my heart, watching it for the first time, in ways far more powerful than mere jump scares.

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSl0DU6qGjVZfH2-Fw0OBHk3737vsQdoq-7hf2Y3kA144OWuM2n4YfEtVr40w8GyzSXZNzXgAo2J-mt7kk4ZEEbPtUuhyivIWiFP6qlhs2sq0YfCJ96dqQQJZCpmSkGYfdeLjfRLQ5QKb/s1600/vlcsnap-2012-09-09-18h10m00s198.jpg

Just listening to the protagonist's first words, close ups of his body, his wife's body too, alongside close ups of caged zoo animals, chills the spine. He is someone who doesn't even doubt his own words. His desire to free souls through cremation forgets the concept of life's existence itself, the innocuous nature of his behaviour even more disturbing than if he was threatening. If studying Nazism in college history taught me anything, it was the perceived notion, through the Hitler Youth movement to national sport events, that the leaders were normal people who believed they were merely providing something positive for their people that allowed the ideology to gain mass support, and offers a frightening mirror of how malleable people are if any idea hides its true nature through messages of healthy living, family values and positivity as a collective that cannot accept negative criticism. Kopfrkingl, brought to life fully by Hrusínský with his baby round face and immaculate comb over, does what he does under the belief of selflessly helping others and being a role model. He is a teetotaller, doesn't smoke, believes in being there for others, and caring for his family and friends, and is intellectual, but he does so with a morbid lack of humanity where he is the centre of the world and always right. Yet he is still secretively malleable when accused of not being enough of a model citizen, his perceived kindness foul and above others, and his wisdom distorted. He can make excuses for blood, Slavic to Germanic, being different but sees human ashes, after cremation, being the same. He is two of the worst aspects of humanity in one person - he who justifies any action, and someone who perceived themselves to be educated and enriched, but who is actually more trapped in the society by embracing it. A mysterious, raven haired woman is only seen by him continually, a possible way of salvation ignored as he presumes to have his independence by helping free souls under a new Nazi state. Stuck in his continuous thoughts and dialogue, the actions and conversations of one scene starting the next, disrupting time, it is both sickly humorous but gruesome in viewing. It is horror at its fullest by imaging how many people actually act like Kopfrkingl in small pieces in real life. Housed in such a vivid, highly creative film of visuals and moments, realism against the abstract scored subtly by Zdenek Liska, it's a terrifying parable that still has a lot to say about humanity.

From http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AjnduKa6j48/TIcYnJyt3HI/AAAAAAAABU4/
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It means more for the fact that this film, black comedy, Expressionist horror, is about the Holocaust and never neglects this fact. It never neglects the uncomfortable truth behind its strange tone. It also never becomes unsubtle, paradoxically so off-kilter, lavish in its style, but never hammering its message. A film like The Cremator distils familiar ideas of human corruption with great craftsmanship and impact than most films don't, and that it was a low budget, small film causes me to realise how a real "great" film stands up and are so different from anything else.

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D Is For... Daisies (1966)

From http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5179/5520232436_5e0235d73f.jpg

Dir. Vera Chytilová

Is this one of the best films I've seen from Czeckslovakia/Czech Republic? I'll say yes, but I don't want to limit myself when there are countless films still for me to see that could be just as great. That's not including other films by Chytilová that I wish were released. If her films were more available, I would grab them when the opportunity would arise.

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/15621/d-is-for-daisies-%E2%80%93-1966-director-vera-chytilova/

Mini-Review: On The Comet (1970)

From http://s2.postimg.org/jn8fpk7k6/Cometa.jpg

Dir. Karel Zeman

Czechoslovakia

A later film is Zeman’s filmography, making films since the later forties, On The Comet takes its influence from turn-of-the century literature. Literature which pre-existed before political correctness, as this film is set in a colonial ruled Middle Eastern country, but is still enriched with the imagination of authors of the time that mixes science fiction and fantasy together and never lets this fact take away from the creativity and fun the stories give. To the surprise of everyone within a colonial town – the French occupiers housed in a fort, an invading group of Arabs helped by the Spanish and the protagonist, obsessed with a girl that seems to have appeared from a postcard and his dreams – a rouge planet skims over the Earth’s atmosphere and pulls the entire town and its populous onto its surface. The warring groups still want to fight each other, as the protagonist and his love interest sit in the middle of it all, despite the fact that the prehistoric occupants of the satellite and the fact that it’s still moving in the universe between planets should be of greater concern.

From http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/5808942180_fc159777cf_b.jpg

Significant to Zeman’s style is his mix of live action and animation. In most cases, it is stop motion animation figures imposed on real sets. In Zeman’s work it is real actors on animated and artificially built sets. The results compare to Georges Méliès, or for a more modern example which borrowed from Méliès, to the music video Tonight Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins. The results create a very appropriate tone for the tributes to classic storytelling, a peculiar mixture of adventure story with science fiction, romance and a handful of rubber dinosaurs. It’s not as extensive in terms of its look as with the director’s A Deadly Invention (1958), but the results, presented in tinted yellow and colour shading like a old silent era film, still fleshes out the results. It also balances out this fantastic plot with satire about the groups involved. The French especially are shown to be comically ridiculous and capable of pointless amounts of dominancy, with plans for any sort of event possible and liable to arrest anyone suspicious when there are flies as big as a man’s head. It would be interesting what this film would be like on an equal adult and child audience – dinosaurs and short length for the kids, a different (from current cinema) take on pulpy adventure stories for adults – and this satire adds a nice caveat to the film. Without the canons the French occupiers, despite being the good guys, would be on equal terms with everyone else and have soldiers who are not as reliable as they would wise. In the colonial era it also adds a nice, modern thought on this issue, replacing soapbox condemnation with a cheeky sense of humour. By the end, the film leaves off with a charming aftertaste to it, managing to feel full for such a short length and never lagging at the same time. And any film with a bipedal pigfish, for a brief scene, deserves an extra mark as a cherry on the top. 

From http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3024/5808919410_dd473c9498_b.jpg

Mini-Review: Krakatit (1949)

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c7/Krakatit_poster.jpg

Dir. Otakar Vávra

Czechoslovakia

A scientist Prokop (Karel Höger) who is an expert in explosives is left dazed and badly injured after his new compound krakatit destroys his flat by accident. It leads him into a murky, distorting conspiracy of people vying for his creation, a subjective one where everyone wants the mega weapon that takes the form of white powder and an elegant woman (Florence Marly) keeps appearing in many different guises with the same, distinct and sensual face. The resulting film, adapted from a Karel Capek novel, is a fascinating hybrid, science fiction with the characters and monochrome shadows of an American Film Noir, oneiric cinema as the reality of the scientist’s world is under question and abstract manipulations take place, and digressions looking back at World War II and its devastation through the outspoken moral the film has. The cinematography is rich befitting the material – befitting a film as well from a country whose cinema for me alongside Iran is creeping up to the level that I will watch anything from the nation like with Italy and Japan – especially as it becomes more unconventional and hazy in tone as it goes along. Looking like the visions created in the illness and fading thoughts of its protagonist, it is suitable “off” and in its own realm distant from ours, the closest comparison being Guy Maddin to help you with the tone of the film picturing it. The individuals that eventually kidnap him and want him to create more of the krakatit have a militaristic edge, a foreign country whose military uniform for the grunt soldiers and the officers in command are similar to German uniform. Made at the end of the forties with only a few years absent from the chaos of a second global war, this film clearly wears its anti-war and anti-weapon message tattooed to its face, even more so when you consider the fear of nuclear weapons that was simultaneously felt in the period. As the scientist finds himself surrounded by numerous people who just want the compound for their nefarious desires, the reoccurring woman becomes a femme fatale of a more omnipresent type, everywhere he goes and part of his mind at the point she is introduced onwards, smouldering and yet completely out-of-comprehension. Florence Marly is sexual and alluring in just looking cold and aloof, the advantage of cinema before the sixties, of black-and-white and femme fatales, in that just her expression she’s both erotic and more powerful than the men in the same location. It has to be asked though whether Krakatit stands up as a great film; the word “rewatch” threatens to creep out from my thoughts, but there’s the question of, regardless of the look and unique tone, whether the storytelling in the centre is fully engaging. It’s interesting to see a film that is clearly influenced by American cinema of the time even if its mood is like that of a silent era, German Expressionist work, but as a narrative film which has to deal with dialogue, plotting, and the obvious message it has, it somewhat doesn’t have the full weight to carry such an immensely interesting veneer, especially as its begging to become even more abstract and dreamlike than the director allows it to be. To be narrative driven you need to either need to be willing to tighten it or completely throw it out the window. Matter of fact, it’s simply my own tastes which makes me hesitant to give it higher praise; outside of this it’s really something I cannot say I’ve seen before.

From http://i.imgur.com/qXRZb.jpg

Alice (1988)

Dir. Jan Svankmajer

Czechoslovakia-Switzerland-West Germany-UK

Note: At least with the UK DVD release, the original language version of the film is available, so don’t be put off if the English dub shown in this clip is off-putting.

What Is It?

A pretty faithful adaptation of the Lewis Carroll story Alice in Wonderland viewed through the eyes of surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer, who made his feature film debut after a few decades of acclaimed shorts.

And?

Alice is almost a continuation from Jabberwocky (1971), which combined another Lewis Carroll work of the same name with Svankmajer’s perception of childhood, existing in the same universe as each other. Immediately from the start of the film, it is less a children’s film and more of a surrealist fantasy art film, where Wonderland is interpreted through corridors of a home and its habitants are stop motion creations made from bone, fur, thread etc. It also separates itself from many children’s films in that its child protagonist is not an idolised version of a child, innocent and yet aware of their surroundings, doing what they can to be kind to others. The Alice in this is a more accurate portrait of a young child, very naive and learning about the fantasy environment very slowly, more slowly than the viewer. Also in one scene, at least for myself, where she is trapped in the White Rabbit’s house made of toy bricks, she shows a selfish spitefulness without any malice where she does not follow the requests of others for the sake of it, a rarity in child characters in mainstream cinema.

For those who have not encountered Svankmajer’s work – and you really should, as they are not just for animation fans, but for any film viewer - his work is distinctive in that the man-made aspect of his animation (and even the positioning of real people as actors) and their textures are upfront and as much part of the films as everything else in them. His stop-motion, and surrealistic flourishes, are usually created using everyday objects both man-made (paper, tools and utensils etc.) and natural objects that are manipulated by human beings (stones, taxidermy animals and bones); he has worked with paper animation and puppetry as well amongst other things, but the emphasis on the materials, and their textures and appearances, is still apparent. (Both these styles appear in Alice as well, and are completely inseparable from everything else). Every scene feels like it has by crafted by someone’s own hands, with the flaws of manipulating and moulding everything into place as much part of generating the atmosphere of his work, be it a short or feature film work.

In the context of other adaptations of Carroll’s story, Svankmajer’s style looks far more ‘creepy’ and ‘unsettling’ compared to something like Disney's, an aspect which is purposely emphasised by having such images as loaves of bread suddenly spurting nails from inside them or the White Rabbit continually losing sawdust from the gaping tear in his chest. However the style is able to go from this to charming and humorous as well, the later a definite part of many of the director’s other work even if its black humour. For its source material it is perfect, adding to the adult sense of whimsy which appears in the original story (which, as well as being a surreal fantasy, satirised attitudes of the British culture of that period, as seen when Alice is put on trial by the King and Queen of Hearts). As an interpretation of childhood, it is just as good, enforced by the use of old style toys that look Victorian at times in appearances. A universal nature in Jan Svankmajer’s work can be seen in the fact that these everyday items are ones that viewers probably possessed or know of greatly – owned by themselves or relatives, found in their attics, or even found on car boot sales and in antique stores – regardless of their country of origin. Svankmajer is also an imaginative filmmaker who, as a practicing Surrealist who works in other mediums as well as cinema, has a keen eye for inspired contrasts and juxtapositions. How fitting is it that the portals to Wonderland and between each part are desk’s drawers, part of a piece of furniture stories like this would be planned and written upon?

Sadly Svankmajer’s other feature work after Alice have been hard to find in the United Kingdom, but having seen Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) and Little Otik (2000) he has affectively taken all of his obsessions from his short work and combined them into longer form narratives that show the craft of a talented veteran filmmaker. Also worthy of praise, especially with Alice, is Welsh film producer Keith Griffiths who helped this film, and other Svankmajer works, to be made. I ask of you the reader to look at his IMDB page, which I will provide in this post, and look at his producer credits. Even though I have disliked or hated some of the films he has produced, Griffiths has contributed to cinema in general immensely, helping such filmmakers aside from Svankmajer like Chris Petit, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and the Quay Brothers (who are huge admirers of Svankmajer and made a short work in tribute to him) to make interesting and unique works. Having Alice and Conspirators of Pleasure in one’s producer credits is worth applauding, but Griffiths’ is even more incredible than this.

Alice is not my favourite Svankmajer feature (that would be Conspirators of Pleasure) let alone out of all of his filmography, but it is a great achievement, a fantastical and surreal work which matches its subject material like a hand to a glove. The film was finally released on UK DVD this year thanks to the British Film Institution, part of a sudden surge of interest in Alice in Wonderland in cinema that started in 2010. Hopefully his other feature films will be made available, but this by itself was worth the wait for me.

Keith Griffiths’ IMDB Page - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341702/