Dionysos

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.

NFA: "The creators themselves were aware that the thematization of violence against women, prostitution, suicide, and assistance in suicide could provoke disapproval, and they consulted the subject matter with representatives of authorities and the church. As a result, a smoother and more melodramatic film was created than it was initially, but it was all in vain. The commission of the FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle = Voluntary Self-Control - a humorous name for an institution in the country that officially abolished censorship) refused to recommend the film for screening, and the churches declared a boycott against it. Demonstrations and counterdemonstrations were held in front of movie theaters, and the screenings in the movie theaters were loudly disrupted." The most interesting aspect of the film is the retrospective flow of flashbacks and multiple different temporal planes of the past (it sounds more complicated than it actually is) presented by the monologue of a single narrator. The subjectivity and intimacy derived from this is supported by the fact that the narrator does not address us, but rather her object of love. Moreover, he does not respond, so the whole story actually unfolds within the soul and memory of a single person, whom we are compelled to observe from the outside as she pursues reconciliation with her own past and her final acts of freedom - we become judges, evaluating the credibility of the repentance of a person who has fully exposed herself before us, like that ancient predecessor who could only be judged by the judges after she was stripped naked before them.

I don't know what else to call it, so I'll call it "tyranny of the camera." While in conventional films, the camera constantly cowardly submits to the movement of the actors, this truly authoritarian camera finds its (static) place and then we only observe how the characters must submit to the space that had been defined for them by its framing (and the fact that this camera is truly uncompromising is beautifully evident in the occasionally decapitated heads of disobedient characters...). Traditional camera and editing surrender to the story's pleasing and seemingly natural narration, in which time ellipses serve to unrealistically cut out seemingly unimportant scenes. Akerman allows the camera to capture even the "boring" parts, and in that, she discovers more than all "Hollywood" stories combined (Akerman, unlike Truffaut, would not omit a traffic jam...). In this case, it penetrates deep into the stereotype of the lifestyle (see feminism), in which even the smallest deviation from the norm can become an explosion of suppressed frustration.

This film should be mandatory for everyone who believes that a documentary is, by its very nature, what is meant to observe and capture reality "objectively" and in "unscripted" situations. Foolishness for many reasons, of which the Rouch/Morin duo choose only a few: first of all, in the context of the social sciences (among which the sociological documentary belongs), the recurrent illusory separation of subject and object, which inevitably imprints the observer's point of view on the observed reality. This is beautifully demonstrated by the authors' repeated entries into the actual film and their interactions with extras. Furthermore, the naive separation between scripted fictional scenes ("feature film") and authentic situations ("documentary") - the camera is always an invasive element, and its mere presence transforms the entire situation and behavior of the actors. This is beautifully shown in the brilliant final part, where the film's characters watch themselves during the screening, and in the subsequent discussion, there are mutually contradictory interpretations regarding the nature of spontaneity in their own and others' speeches. In short, it is a mockery from over half a century ago of those who expect a documentary to capture the emanation of pure Truth.

The second part continues exactly where the previous part ended, after the main character's transformation from a white terrorist into a friend of the people. This transformation seemed very poorly managed to me throughout Hungarian Rhapsody: 1st moment = István is bred with the intolerant attitude of the aristocracy, and he cruelly fights on the side of counterrevolution; 2nd moment = István recommends allocating land to retail farmers, in order to "take the wind out of the sails of the reds," so it is clearly just an opportunistic calculating gesture; 3rd moment = István, dressed in peasant rags, sits at the table with the former aristocracy. Nothing happened between moments 2 and 3 that would coherently explain this transformation. Fortunately, this problem no longer exists in Allegro Barbaro (and it is therefore paradoxical that a story in which characters do not transform is better), and we can enjoy the eternal struggle of arrogance and brutality of wealth and power with the suffering and resistance of poverty in the background of passing history. There is no need to talk about the mastery of mise-en-scène, and the playful placement of individual characters is also very pleasing, which is not only the result of clever movement of actors on the stage but also of miraculous film editing.

At least in the first hour, an almost brilliant mockery of all seemingly unquestionably valid claims of language on the objective construction of social life. Greenaway sets up a truly linguistic game in which the randomness of every linguistic system is perfectly demonstrated, in the sense that the meaning of things and therefore their naming is not given positively but is derived negatively by differentiation from all other names (from the word "table" itself, nothing is derived, but we gain the idea of a table by contrasting it with "chair," "wall," "child," "spaceship," etc...). The randomness of specific expressions is therefore obvious. The language we speak every day can be playfully disrupted, allowing the author to build a completely new system, which can form, for example, around a worldwide bird conspiracy, thanks to the aforementioned randomness/arbitrariness. Just as the stereotypical idea of language is shattered, so is our traditional expectation of film. It is a perfect work in this respect but it simply should have been shorter.

The film is certainly not Italian soft porn, and the sporadic sex scenes in it (although quite explicit at times) only make sense in the context of the entire film, which primarily revolves around the overall societal movement in Italy from the late 70s and especially the 80s. The progressive era of consumptive "normalization" with the fading radicalism of the 60s and 70s brought most Italians to the embrace of simple pleasures such as color televisions, cars, and of course, sex (let us remember Pasolini's famous justification in Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom). The male characters in the film become symbols of this betrayal (Bellocchio himself was a member of the Communist Party and also a member of a Maoist cell in the 70s) or, for some, a sense of wisdom - notably Giulia's fiancé (who seemingly has no other role in the film) and her young lover. However, the film is not that simple, as it is complicated by (who else but) a woman. Giulia may appear at first glance as the most obvious manifestation of this primitive indulgence in sexual pleasures, but in her ambiguity, she would need to have not been played by the surprisingly very good M. Detmers and, most importantly, Bellocchio could not end the film with a perfect conclusion in which the role of the seemingly self-evident school lectures from antiquity to Feuerbach is fulfilled. Is Giulia a modern-day Antigone and therefore a positive character? And does the film thereby become Bellochio's denunciation of the times or a confession of his past mistakes?

The beginning of the film undermines the viewer's expectations by presenting the predictable behavior of both sides of the conflict - the mafia and the main protagonist, Salvatore, along with the locals who are terrorized. Fortunately, this initial idyllic image falls apart due to the cautiousness of the locals, who are determined to fight against the uncompromising activism and the "worldly" mainland Italy that Salvatore represents. His power struggle with the mafia becomes more complex and isolating, and as a character, Salvatore, portrayed brilliantly by Volonté, is surprisingly ambiguous. Given the development of the situation, his motivation to altruistically help the oppressed, based on his firm convictions, gradually blends with self-sacrificing martyrdom, bordering on self-adoration. However, the feature debut of the three directors did not achieve (and deservedly so, even though it's still a very good film) the same recognition as the famous films/debuts of the early 1960s that changed the face of Italian cinema, such as Accattone (1961) by Pasolini, Time Stood Still (1959) + The Job (1961) by E. Olmi, and Bandits of Orgosolo (1960) by Vittorio De Seta.

"Nudity is simplicity. Like love, birth, and water. Like the sun, the beach, all of it." It is also fitting to add: like a wave. That is, the new one. The one with its lightness and simplicity in which the director is able to capture Paris in its own thousand reflections and at the same time with all its crowded streets, cafes, and shops. And yet, just as easily capturing the inner self of the main character in her nudity and (this is not meant obscenely) her final unveiling in front of another person and the city itself. The self-centeredness that breeds isolation and detachment from others, characterized by the use of taxis, is overcome by a symbolic transfer to a bus, in which the protagonist can no longer travel alone. Similarly, the exchange of a phone call for a personal visit to the hospital is symbolic - looking the enemy in the face in person is the basis for overcoming and taking responsibility for one's own life.