O slavnosti a hostech [A Report on the Party and Guests] (Jan Němec, 1966)
Nov
22
Bales' Birthday
The birthday party mingled in with the others in the woods, all dressed immaculately and seated at elaborately decked tables. The guests and their host raise their glasses towards the camera. DP: Jaromír Šofr.
A birthday party for OP Bales’ birthday!
“So will someone tell me what happened or not? A brother shouldn't turn against his brother. And a guest shouldn't turn against a guest.”
Our lovebirds holding out on the Human Roulette, one of the many dizzying Steeplechase attractions of Coney Island. DP: Gilbert Warrenton.
A beautiful day for Beautiful Day (USA??).
Two hopelessly lonely hearts meet each other at Coney Island, spending the most wonderful day in each other's company. Pál Fejős' joyful Lonesome was made just when motion pictures became talkies, and new and more modern novelties were expected by the audience. Fejős delivers, with sound and musical inserts, and the occasional – almost shocking – burst of colour.
With light touches of Murnau's groundbreaking Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Jean Vigo's more experimental À propos de Nice (1930), Lonesome depicts the exuberance of youth with an optimism soon to be lost to the vices of history.
It's just a little game. But then you wonder if Ouija, the Wonderful Talking Board is actually just that. Two neat little ladies playing that quirky 1891 novelty game in Roland West's The Bat Whispers summon the aforementioned bat, black-clad fiend and Batman predecessor.
– Get the Ouija board.
– It's got the Bible on top of it, keeping it quiet.
Who is he? What does he want? And how can he be stopped? Do you know the answer?
Tätowierung [Tattoo / The Delinquent] (Johannes Schaaf, 1967)
Nov
18
National Adoption Day
Benno (Christof Wackernagel), a pensive young man with dark hair and dark eyes. DPs: Petrus R. Schlömp & Wolf Wirth.
16 year old Benno (Christof Wackernagel) lives in a reformatory until the Lohmanns, a rich middle-aged #WestBerlin business couple decides to adopt him. A new world opens up, one of adulthood and responsibility. For the teenager, this neatly regulated new bourgeois life feels all wrong.
Amedeo (Enzo Jannacci), a young man with heavy rimmed glasses wrapped in heavy, flowery drapes as if it's a toga, eating late at night. There's an opened can on one of his plates. A sad looking stuffed toy dog hangs out. DP: Mario Vulpiani.
Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron (Jean-Pierre Cargol), reads letters from a board under supervision of Dr. Jean Itard (Truffaut). DP: Néstor Almendros.
One of the most elaborately recorded “feral child” cases is that of the Wild Boy of Aveyron. In the year 1800, after few fruitless attempts to bound him to civilisation, a young boy left the forests of Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance and settled in. The child's primal appearance and lack of speech labeled him an idiot. However, in the era of Enlightenment, the question of nurture versus nature was a pressing one. Studies on Victor began.
“I'm glad that you came home. Do you understand? This is your home. You're no longer a wild boy, even if you're not yet a man.”
– Dr. Itard
Truffaut explores L'enfant sauvage right when the idea of the noble savage seemed to lock on with counterculture. With #Truffaut as Victor's tutor Itard in front of the camera, directly guiding amateur child actor (and “gipsy”) Cargol, the film not only reimagines Victor's fate, but reenacts Western presumed enlightenment over The Other.
A man kneeled in front of a Shintō altar. Ceremonial origami, known as origata or girei origami can be seen hanging from the altar. This is 幣帛 [heihaku], an offering made of cloth or paper. DP: Tōichirō Narushima.
Matka Joanna od Aniolów [Mother Joan of the Angels] (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1961)
Nov
9
Chaos Never Dies Day
A possessed nun in white spinning on her axis among her sisters. Black clad priests in the background observe the scene. DP: Jerzy Wójcik.
Four years after the tragic events at Loudun. Mother superior, the titular Mother Joan, is still possessed by the Devil and has slowly pulled in the other sisters. A priest, the fourth one, is send to the convent to exorcise the demons who at this point have possessed all but one sister. Chaos ensues.
“If one can't be saint, it's better to be damned.”
