settima

war

Smrt si říká Engelchen [Death Is Called Engelchen] (Ján Kadár + Elmar Klos, 1963)

Sep

19

ER – 1994

Smrt si říká Engelchen (1963)

Pavel (Jan Kačer) recovering face-down in his hospital bed. DP: RudolfMilič.

An emergency room: ER debuts on this date in 1994.

 

A paralysed Czechoslovak partisan recovering from a shot in the back in an emergency ward, feverishly remembers the events that brought him to that moment. He particularly remembers Engelchen, the SS Sturmbannführer who killed his best friend and massacred the local villagers.

The War Game (Peter Watkins, 1966)

Sep

16

The War Game (1966)

An old man in uniform, possibly a mailman or traffic warden, stands motionless in a crowd of people. He looks off into the distance. DPs: Peter Bartlett & Peter Suschitzky.

“In the next world war, I believe that both sides could stop before the ultimate destruction of cities so that both sides could retire for a period of ten years or so of post-attack recuperation, in which world wars four to eight could be prepared.”

– a leading American nuclear strategist

Hullumeelsus [Безумие / Madness] (Kaljo Kiisk, 1968)

Sep

15

International Day of Democracy

Hullumeelsus (1968)

Windisch (Jüri Järvet) pacing, blending in with a white-clad inmate. DP: Anatoliy Zabolotskiy.

On the International Day of Democracy, the word “democracy” is spoken.

“Stop shooting! Stop democracy!”

– Person Nr. 1

The Gestapo arrives to liquidate the inmates of a mental hospital. Then Windisch, plainclothes Nazi, brings them a letter: there's a special commando hiding amidst the 583 patients. Interrogating them slowly pushes Windisch among them.

И дойде денят [I doyde denyat / And the Day Came] (Georgi Djulgerov, 1973)

Sep

9

1944

И дойде денят (1973)

Mustafa (Plamen Maslarov) running. DP: Radoslav Spassov.

Friendship's Death (Peter Wollen, 1987)

Sep

9

1970

Friendship's Death (1987)

Bill Paterson and Tilda Swinton as Sullivan and Friendship. DP: Witold Stok.

“What will happen when your machines become intelligent? When they become autonomous? When they have private thoughts? You humans look down on your machines because they're man-made. They're a product of your skills and labour. They weren't even domesticated like animals were. You see them simply as extensions of yourself, of your own will. I can't accept that. I can't accept subhuman status simply because I'm a machine based on silicon rather than carbon, electronics rather than biology. If I sound fanatical, it's because I've been trapped in a time warp. In a world where the full potential of machines hasn't been guessed at. A world where I have to wear a human disguise to be accepted? I came here too late. It will all end before the computers that already control the fate of the world have reached the point where they wanted to survive.”

– Friendship

A Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell + Emeric Pressburger, 1944)

Aug

27

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Alison (Sheila Sim) looking out over the rolling hills of Kent with the Canterbury Cathedral somewhere out there. DP: Erwin Hillier.

“Well, there are more ways than one of getting close to your ancestors. Follow the old road, and as you walk, think of them and of the old England. They climbed Chillingbourne Hill, just as you. They sweated and paused for breath just as you did today. And when you see the bluebells in the spring and the wild thyme, and the broom and the heather, you're only seeing what their eyes saw. You ford the same rivers. The same birds are singing. When you lie flat on your back and rest, and watch the clouds sailing, as I often do, you're so close to those other people, that you can hear the thrumming of the hoofs of their horses, and the sound of the wheels on the road, and their laughter and talk, and the music of the instruments they carried. And when I turn the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of Canterbury, I feel I've only to turn my head, to see them on the road behind me.”

– Thomas Colpeper, JP

Estate violenta [Violent Summer] (Valerio Zurlini, 1959)

Jul

25

1943

Estate violenta (1959)

A large radio on a small pedestal. A perpetual wall calendar next to it reads DOMENICA 25 LUGLIO. DP: Tino Santoni.

 

Estate violenta [Violent Summer] (Valerio Zurlini, 1959)

Jul

19

Estate violenta (1959)

Roberta (Eleonora Rossi Drago) and Carlo (Jean-Louis Trintignant). DP: Tino Santoni.

Characters go on a date, or fall in love*

“It would be thrilling if you were willing, and if it can never be, pity me, for you were born to be kissed, I can’t resist, you are temptation, and I am yours!”

– Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed, Temptation (1933)

On a beautiful summer day in Rimini, Carlo, the handsome son from a bourgeois home, saves a little girl and becomes infatuated with the girl's mother, a young widow years his senior. Set in July 1943, the events in the outer world (poss. spoilers) and the fate of the two uneven lovers slowly come to their logical conclusion.

 

Popiół i diament [Ashes and Diamonds] (Andrzej Wajda, 1958)

Jun

27

National Sunglasses Day

Popiół i diament (1958)

Maciek Chelmicki (Zbigniew Cybulski) wearing his sunglasses in a dark, almost German Expressionist space, embellished with meandros. DP: Jerzy Wójcik.

[The best] sunglasses in film for National Sunglasses Day (USA)

– Why do you always wear those dark glasses?

– A souvenir of unrequited love for my homeland.

According to IMDb, the sale of sunglasses in Poland went through the roof after this film was released and Cybulski became his country's very own James Dean.

The Diary of an Unknown Soldier (Peter Watkins, 1959)

Jun

14

Army Day

The Diary of an Unknown Soldier (1959)

That glance. Any soldier at any time. DP: Peter Watkins.

“That’s how I will probably die, left like a poor old rag on the battlefield. When you know this is going to happen to you, your body suddenly becomes something terribly precious to you. This flesh, soft and warm is yours; a personal belonging not to be discarded like an awful piece of meat. You find yourself thinking about this, realizing what a wonderful thing your body is, and what an awful and wrong thing it is to maltreat it.”

Watkins takes the anonymous slaughter of the masses on the battlefield inside, into the body and mind of a young soldier.