In this extremely funny satire on Soviet bureaucracy, the protagonist, a hapless author, attempts again and again to get his editors to accept his manuscript — a novel with the title “Blue Mountains or Tieshan.” The story unfolds with the inevitability of a fairy tale in which a naive hero is painfully being initiated into the ways of the world, and while the would-be author wanders through the hallways of his publishers, we in turn learn a lot about the crumbling Soviet system and the inactivity of its bureaucratic functionaries. By Hollywood standards, the film may be slow and repetitive, but it is precisely the repetition of tragicomic situations that bring the film to the heights of a Beckettian absurdity.
Tag: 1980s
A soldier in a Soviet nuclear facility finds himself trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare with no exit in sight. The surreal imagery in this cartoon from Armenfilm includes a platoon of miniature shock troopers, mutant generals and dinosaurs singing We Are the World. The sense that communism had failed to advance, and was in fact causing the Soviet Union to turn in on itself, is powerfully felt.
This animated film is based on an old Persian parable. The inhabitants of a village learn to overcome their fear of the unknown. The benefit of their new-found knowledge is demonstrated. The black-and-white images are reminiscent of German wood-cuts. No dialogue.
Three ‘Bukowskian’ torrid nights in the life of a man in search of love. Harry, 12, is young and naive. Love, for him, is romantic love between princes and princesses demurely kissing each other on the mouth. His father is a hero who kidnapped his mother and married her on a lonely mountain peak – Later on, he’ll do the same. But Harry has a lot to learn. He also learns that there are handsome men and ugly ones, that love can be unfair. That one can find comfort in drinking – but above all he learns that man is capable of anything – absolutely anything. – to get his fair share of love.
A must-see for all Rainer Werner Fassbinder fans. Radu Gabrea’s campy 1984 biopic about the late director stars the very talented Eva Mattes in drag in the title role, manipulating his Munich stock company in a variety of perverse ways while coming on as a slob enfant terrible. Funny, insightful, and packed with inside references that enthusiasts of the director and his myth will particularly enjoy, this is good, decadent fun even for spectators with only a casual acquaintance with Fassbinder; Mattes’s hallucinatory performance has a fascination all its own.
Intrigue and deceit in medieval Hungary, with spectacular choreography by Miklós Jancsó. Gáspár, the youngest scion of the ruling family, returns home from Italy and discovers he is destined to be crowned king. However, the path to the throne is convoluted and in the death dance around the court nobody can escape their fate. Ninetto Davoli, known from Pasolini films, also plays an important role alongside László Gálffi, while József Madaras and György Cserhalmi similarly excel in this carnival-like allegory mixed with pantomime.
In 1954, escorted by a sergeant, a French nun travels through Tonkin, spreading the good Catholic word as she goes. A mute child leads her to a remote village. Installed at a carpenter, the travelers prepare the projection material indispensable to their propaganda. At nightfall, in a storm, a group of maquisards surrounded the house. Fortunately, the carpenter is a respected man. The attackers withdraw. After a sudden rise in water, the mute child loses the precious message that had been entrusted to him by a wounded maquis…
A man and a woman meet in Vienna in 1970 and remember together the events of 1919, when they were separate patients of Sigmund Freud. One was suicidal after a lesbian affair, the other unable to love except without sex. They discuss their memories of Freud and his analysis of their problems. These memories from 1919 are shown in flashbacks.