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O Bandido da Luz Vermelha [The Red Light Bandit] (Rogério Sganzerla, 1968)
Jul
1
prairie oyster
The bandit (Paulo Villaça) cracks a raw egg over his liquid breakfast while one of his female victims (Sonia Braga) is on the phone beside him. Her cigarette smokes itself and the kitchen table is packed with drugstore items. DPs: Peter Overbeck & Carlos Ebert.
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Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait [General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait / No One Can Run Faster Than a Rifle Bullet] (Barbet Schroeder, 1974)
Jun
9
National Heroes Day Of Uganda
Schroeder in tuxedo interviewing General Idi Amin Dada Oumee. Even in the context of the scene, Schroeder just came from a gala event, the tuxedo is a statement of assumed superiority. DP: Néstor Almendros.
It's easy… no lazy to put this documentary away as a failed Idi Amin propaganda project. In 1974, German-Swiss Barbet Schroeder, privileged son of a diplomat, already knew more than enough about how to select framing and manipulate timing. The result, Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait, is a prime example of the neo-colonialist gaze.
“You film. Film helicopter.”
– The General explaining a director's one and only task
Amin, clearly not speaking his native language, tries to explain his plans for #Uganda. The camera (Spanish cinematographer) moves in on his gesturing hands, then a jump cut (French editor) to soldiers who – instructed in English – seem unsure of what is asked of them. When (in the copy I watched) people speak in Swahili, no translation is provided and the portrayed are little more than undeveloped, exotic backdrop. Everything seems to be a joke to Schroeder: the air force's MiGs, Amin and his higher-ups joining tribesmen in dance, even the President's children are used to exemplify the stereotype of the overly virile, primitive African male.
Amin was, as Schroeder is, a product of Europe's Scramble. With the difference that, although bloody and despicable, Amin's strategy was not to embolden the West's moribund empire.
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Grands soirs & petits matins [May Days] (William Klein, 1978)
Jun
6
National Higher Education Day
Students discussing at the Sorbonne. DPs: William Klein & Bernard Lutic.
A ripple went through France in the early months of 1968. It started when the Communist and socialist party joined forces in an attempt to remove President De Gaulle from office. A month later, students at Nanterre (a Parisian university) teamed up with poets, musicians and small leftist groups to discuss class discrimination and political bureaucracy on campus. The meeting was peacefully disassembled but tensions remained. In May, Sorbonne students stood up for Nanterre, by then shut down. Then, police invaded the university and 20 000 stood up against the police.
“Convert all Parisian universities into reception centres for the revolutionary youth of the whole world.”
– student proposal
Somewhere in that crowd were those whose interest went beyond the main spectacle: the toppling of the new ancien regime. A #JeanRouchian anthropologist of sorts, artist, photographer and filmmaker William Klein pushes the eye through the masses. But it's also his eye; each frame is a Klein. However, we see not a documentary. Sound is asynchronous. Suddenly, it's night and flames lick the black sky. When bricks fly, frames follow. And then… the end.
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Cuadecuc, vampir (Pere Portabella, 1971)
May
26
World Dracula Day
Lucy (Soledad Miranda) in bloody embrace with Dracula (Christopher Lee). DP: Manel Esteban.
A black forest. A man walks through, holding a smoke machine. Then a carriage with a familiar coachman. Dracula! Where are we? No, not 19th century #Transylvania. The film stock reveals bullet holes in ancient walls, and beyond these walls a ladder, maybe scaffolding. A pneumatic drill, more crew members, lights, a clapperboard. Are the characters aware of that? Them seem to interact with the disturbance yet oblige to the interruptions of the movie set. In a state of hypnopompia, guided by kuroko, maybe?
“cut”
Pere Portabella created a hyper-reality with his Cuadecuc, vampir. A director dismantles the man-behind-the-curtain, Franco, the other #Franco while setting up scaffolding for the next Spain. Everything's a reality, or an illusion, then nothing is.
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Les sorcières de Salem [The Witches of Salem / The Crucible] (Raymond Rouleau, 1957)
Mar
7
National Town Meeting Day
The townspeople meet in the barn to judge the accused. DP: Claude Renoir.
Raymond Rouleau's Les sorcières de Salem – with a screenplay by Marxist philosopher Jean-Paul #Sartre – is a very early film adaptation of Arthur Miller's 1953 #TheatrePlay The Crucible. An allegory of #McCarthyism, the play is a (partially dramatised) retelling of the #SalemWitchTrials, a dramatic episode in early US-American history. During several court and town meetings, 200 people were falsely accused of meddling with the Devil; 19 of them were eventually executed.
“If she is innocent! Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God's fingers? I'll tell you what's walking Salem — vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”
– Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)
Miller himself was accused of un-American activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended. Which doesn't mean that #WitchTrials are a thing of the past. As easily one can transplant Puritan religious mass hysteria to 1950s McCarthy anti-socialism, as easy is it applicable to the state of the world today.
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Het Leesplankje [The Reading Lesson] (Johan van der Keuken, 1973)
Mar
2
National Read Across America Day
Reading board tiles laid out on a newspaper. Half a headline – 7.000 ARRESTANTEN (“7000 DETAINEES”) – can be read. A photograph of a shellshocked, very young soldier in front of a fleeing crowd illustrates the article. DP: Johan van der Keuken.
Amsterdam schoolchildren recite the words from a reading board while the traditional teaching method's pictures are interspersed with news photos of then-current events and children's drawings.
“Aaaaap”
“Nooot”
“Miiieees”
This short, and life, is haunting and violent; schools should be safe for all. Even if only to escape in a book.
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American Dreams: Lost and Found (James Benning, 1984)
Feb
24
National Trading Card Day
A Hank Aaron trading card from director James Benning's personal collection. Below it a scrolling text quoting from Arthur Bremer's diary.
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Hroch [The Hippo] (Karel Steklý, 1973)
Feb
15
World Hippo Day
A poster for Hroch, showing a beautifully dressed woman in an animal enclosure feeding a hippopotamus what appears to be a consecrated wafer. A TV camera in the back records it all. DP: František Uldrich.
In this political satire criticising Czechoslovakia's “normalisation” period, a journalist learns about bank employee Bedrich Hroch, who – while attempting to determine how much #gold the local #zoo's hippopotamus' needs for a tooth replacement – is swallowed by the animal.
With the man happily residing inside the creature, his journalist friend hatches a plan to use the “talking hippo” for political means .
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Ucho [The Ear] (Karel Kachyňa, 1970)
Jan
27
Thomas Crapper Day
Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohatý) taking a break from the official's party in a pristine but claustrophobic, white-tiled toilet stall. DP: Josef Illík.
“Even you, Ear, can't listen in the toilet!”
– Ludvik