Clean, Shaven (1993, USA)
The human mind is a versatile, complex system - capable of beautiful things when properly wired, and of unspeakable horrors when it misfires. We all know this. Hollywood certainly does, and it's delved into the topic with creative enthusiasm over the years.
Clean, Shaven is one of many films that explore the wonderful and terrible propensities of the human mind via the story of a schizophrenic man, Peter Winter, who, released from an asylum, sets out to find his daughter.
But needless to say, this one is different. Peter's madness isn't the flamboyant villainy of Buffalo Bill, or the extravagant, artistic delusions of Nina from Black Swan; it's the dreary and mundane madness of the ordinary man. Peter's life is bleak, grey, and suffocatingly unremarkable, and his madness isn't the sort that gives it colour; merely the sort that makes it impossible for it to have any greater meaning.
Quite paradoxically, the weirdness of this film stems primarily not from Peter's madness, but from its brutally clinical realism: the narrative offers no heroes or villains, no thrills or laughs, no climax or happy ending; like Peter's life, it is merely a chain of events that gradually peters out. Events in the film happen in such a way that we feel much less like an enthralled audience member with a front row seat watching as scenes are elaborately played out for our entertainment, and much more like we are a silent bystander lurking in a far corner looking disinterestedly on. Even a bar holdup scene occurs with no fanfare and is over in seconds - much like it would be, it seems, if we were in the position of a morose, half-asleep drunk hunched over the bar. The backdrop is colourless and bleak, but it's not the embellished, unnatural stage-set bleakness of Brazil's dystopian Britain or The Matrix's underground city; it's the sort of bleakness that's most crushing for its uncomfortable familiarity. Peter's dismal world is a place of dusty fields and grey streets. There's no need for a carefully constructed set here; the backdrop, like the rest of Peter's life, is joyless and dreary in a dishearteningly natural manner.
Peter's madness is, naturally, a theme that recurs throughout - incoherent images flash by, indistinct voices buzz through like a slightly off-frequency radio - but its effect upon the viewer is much the same as its effect upon Peter: it produces no thrills or wonder, only confusion. The viewer, like Peter, comprehends Peter's immediate situation, but little else. The greater world comes across as aloof and indifferent to Peter, and the motives and thoughts of other characters are only superficially comprehensible; and Peter's incoherent mind drastically splits apart any hints we do get.
Clean, Shaven is one of many films that explore the wonderful and terrible propensities of the human mind via the story of a schizophrenic man, Peter Winter, who, released from an asylum, sets out to find his daughter.
But needless to say, this one is different. Peter's madness isn't the flamboyant villainy of Buffalo Bill, or the extravagant, artistic delusions of Nina from Black Swan; it's the dreary and mundane madness of the ordinary man. Peter's life is bleak, grey, and suffocatingly unremarkable, and his madness isn't the sort that gives it colour; merely the sort that makes it impossible for it to have any greater meaning.
Quite paradoxically, the weirdness of this film stems primarily not from Peter's madness, but from its brutally clinical realism: the narrative offers no heroes or villains, no thrills or laughs, no climax or happy ending; like Peter's life, it is merely a chain of events that gradually peters out. Events in the film happen in such a way that we feel much less like an enthralled audience member with a front row seat watching as scenes are elaborately played out for our entertainment, and much more like we are a silent bystander lurking in a far corner looking disinterestedly on. Even a bar holdup scene occurs with no fanfare and is over in seconds - much like it would be, it seems, if we were in the position of a morose, half-asleep drunk hunched over the bar. The backdrop is colourless and bleak, but it's not the embellished, unnatural stage-set bleakness of Brazil's dystopian Britain or The Matrix's underground city; it's the sort of bleakness that's most crushing for its uncomfortable familiarity. Peter's dismal world is a place of dusty fields and grey streets. There's no need for a carefully constructed set here; the backdrop, like the rest of Peter's life, is joyless and dreary in a dishearteningly natural manner.
Peter's madness is, naturally, a theme that recurs throughout - incoherent images flash by, indistinct voices buzz through like a slightly off-frequency radio - but its effect upon the viewer is much the same as its effect upon Peter: it produces no thrills or wonder, only confusion. The viewer, like Peter, comprehends Peter's immediate situation, but little else. The greater world comes across as aloof and indifferent to Peter, and the motives and thoughts of other characters are only superficially comprehensible; and Peter's incoherent mind drastically splits apart any hints we do get.
Lead actor Peter Greene offers a performance far removed from that of his better-known role as Pulp Fiction's hillbilly rapist. It might be argued that he doesn't have much to do, given how little his character - and most others in this film - actually does, at least by Hollywood standards; but in spite of that, Greene does a striking job of working with the film's naturalistic bleakness to inspire within the audience a strong degree of sympathy. Even after it becomes clear how different Peter's mind is from our own - even after we're presented with the very real possibility that he may have murdered a child - his life remains crushingly hopeless in such a discomfitingly familiar manner that we cannot help but pity him. Peter exists in a wretched environment with which his erratic mind will not let him engage, surrounded by people whose lives seem equally aimless and empty, and who do not seem to know to react to him with anything other than fear and disgust. Greene bears the burden of the pathos this entails with great effectiveness.
I'll say it bluntly: Clean, Shaven is not an easy film to watch. It's not exciting, or pretty, and it'll do nothing to help you forget your woes (though it'll probably give you a few more to dwell on). It is, however, profound and moving, treating mental illness both with sympathy and with cold realism. For 80 minutes, the viewer is pulled into the world of the ordinary schizophrenic - a world at once terrifying and drably familiar. It's not a fun place to be, and you'll be more than happy to leave; but once you have, you won't be able to help but reflect.
I'll say it bluntly: Clean, Shaven is not an easy film to watch. It's not exciting, or pretty, and it'll do nothing to help you forget your woes (though it'll probably give you a few more to dwell on). It is, however, profound and moving, treating mental illness both with sympathy and with cold realism. For 80 minutes, the viewer is pulled into the world of the ordinary schizophrenic - a world at once terrifying and drably familiar. It's not a fun place to be, and you'll be more than happy to leave; but once you have, you won't be able to help but reflect.
Daisies (1966, Czechoslovakia)
It's inevitable, really: when you're watching a film out of the Eastern Bloc, you're obliged to search for those discreet signs of quiet defiance against the Soviet regime, regardless of how apolitical or universal the film may seem on the surface. The idea, after all, that in the face of a massive institution of censorship and oppression, artists will selflessly work to sow the seeds of defiance in the common mind, is one that we love to cling to; it helps us stay sane.
And like any Eastern Bloc film, Daisies needs contextualisation; so I'd best say something about the film itself before I forget what I'm talking about. The best known work of the famously hot-headed director Věra Chytilová, Daisies, a film born out of the cheeky Czech New Wave movement, is a loosely plotted collage concerned with two free-spirited hippie girls, who casually make their way through life by mooching off naive, lonely older men, and occupy themselves with aimlessly naughty - though never vulgar - antics.
The 60s were a complicated time in Czechoslovakia, and I can't say I fully understand them, but that certainly won't stop me from pretending I do. It was, of course, still a Soviet state, and the censors still lurked in the background with their stamps and black books; but somehow, the free-spirited defiance of America's flower-child generation had, in some form, spread to this small, landlocked communist nation on the other side of the globe. This was the decade that would give rise to the Czech New Wave, a dissident movement (though one that eschewed any solidly defined, uniform philosophy) among the nation's filmmakers - one which would give rise to films that are widely considered some of the nation's best. And just two years after the release of Daisies would come the Prague Spring, when Dubček would attempt to liberalise the government and alleviate media censorship (a noble, but doomed effort that would be crushed by the country's fellow Soviet powers a few years later, leading to the banning of many of the New Wave films and the exile and gagging of several of its prominent directors, including Chytilová herself).
In short, it's fair to say that Daisies was made in an environment that - at least for a time - allowed for slightly more open defiance of the oppressive Soviet powers than most other Eastern Bloc countries. And certainly, that defiance shines through in this consistently cheeky, unconventional film.
Exactly what the film is defying, however, is less obvious. Throughout the film, one gets the sense of a conscious effort not to offend the censors (who were still decidedly present even in this increasingly disobedient environment). No reference is made, obviously, to any specific movement, ideology, or political environment; and though the film is often seen, nowadays, as a feminist piece (certainly, it has a distinctly feminine voice, and a strong air of carefree female defiance in a straight-laced, male-dominated world), one gets the sense that the disjointed hints of plot were chosen to mislead the censors. Though the film is clearly much more subtext than text, one could, if one is naive enough to take the events of the film at face value, interpret the film as a pro-communist piece, and see the female leads - who live by swindling rich men, and who are baffled by the sight of a gardener watering a lawn - as an indictment of the parasite, that figure reviled in both capitalist and communist ideologies, who lives only to eat and who contributes nothing to society.
This isn't the case, of course - the female leads are very clearly the heroines, albiet less than completely sympathetic ones - but overall, one gets the sense that, if there's anything specific being criticised in the film, it has to be unearthed by the viewer; Chytilová herself was an outspoken critic of the Soviet regime, but any pratically-minded artist knows, there's no point in producing a defiant piece of work condemning the higher powers if nobody ever sees it.
Unfortunately for Daisies, any efforts it may have made to appease the censors were unsuccessful; and though the film was well-liked internationally, it was almost immediately banned in Chytilová's home country for "depicting the wanton", officially because of a scene where the main characters destroy a banquet, which apparently constitutes food wastage. And at the risk of sounding like an insufferable pseudo-intellectual with a bad sense of humour, I'm inclined to think that the Czech authorities simply came up with this as an excuse because they didn't have a rubber stamp for "I'm scared of films I don't understand".
Ah, damn, I'm reviewing a film, not doing an amateur political analysis. Dammit. Well, Daisies is...as a film, it's an acquired taste. The aesthetic is wedged somewhere between a Dadaist collage and a brightly pastel piece of 60s pop art (and, I'm sure, several other 20th century art movements I've never heard of). Never having been much of a fan of either movement, I can't really say I'm overly fond of the film's loosely connected scenes, brightly coloured filters and flashes of random imagery; but, of course, in socio-political context, heavy-handed efforts on the part of this film to defy as many conventions as possible are more than understandable.
And like any Eastern Bloc film, Daisies needs contextualisation; so I'd best say something about the film itself before I forget what I'm talking about. The best known work of the famously hot-headed director Věra Chytilová, Daisies, a film born out of the cheeky Czech New Wave movement, is a loosely plotted collage concerned with two free-spirited hippie girls, who casually make their way through life by mooching off naive, lonely older men, and occupy themselves with aimlessly naughty - though never vulgar - antics.
The 60s were a complicated time in Czechoslovakia, and I can't say I fully understand them, but that certainly won't stop me from pretending I do. It was, of course, still a Soviet state, and the censors still lurked in the background with their stamps and black books; but somehow, the free-spirited defiance of America's flower-child generation had, in some form, spread to this small, landlocked communist nation on the other side of the globe. This was the decade that would give rise to the Czech New Wave, a dissident movement (though one that eschewed any solidly defined, uniform philosophy) among the nation's filmmakers - one which would give rise to films that are widely considered some of the nation's best. And just two years after the release of Daisies would come the Prague Spring, when Dubček would attempt to liberalise the government and alleviate media censorship (a noble, but doomed effort that would be crushed by the country's fellow Soviet powers a few years later, leading to the banning of many of the New Wave films and the exile and gagging of several of its prominent directors, including Chytilová herself).
In short, it's fair to say that Daisies was made in an environment that - at least for a time - allowed for slightly more open defiance of the oppressive Soviet powers than most other Eastern Bloc countries. And certainly, that defiance shines through in this consistently cheeky, unconventional film.
Exactly what the film is defying, however, is less obvious. Throughout the film, one gets the sense of a conscious effort not to offend the censors (who were still decidedly present even in this increasingly disobedient environment). No reference is made, obviously, to any specific movement, ideology, or political environment; and though the film is often seen, nowadays, as a feminist piece (certainly, it has a distinctly feminine voice, and a strong air of carefree female defiance in a straight-laced, male-dominated world), one gets the sense that the disjointed hints of plot were chosen to mislead the censors. Though the film is clearly much more subtext than text, one could, if one is naive enough to take the events of the film at face value, interpret the film as a pro-communist piece, and see the female leads - who live by swindling rich men, and who are baffled by the sight of a gardener watering a lawn - as an indictment of the parasite, that figure reviled in both capitalist and communist ideologies, who lives only to eat and who contributes nothing to society.
This isn't the case, of course - the female leads are very clearly the heroines, albiet less than completely sympathetic ones - but overall, one gets the sense that, if there's anything specific being criticised in the film, it has to be unearthed by the viewer; Chytilová herself was an outspoken critic of the Soviet regime, but any pratically-minded artist knows, there's no point in producing a defiant piece of work condemning the higher powers if nobody ever sees it.
Unfortunately for Daisies, any efforts it may have made to appease the censors were unsuccessful; and though the film was well-liked internationally, it was almost immediately banned in Chytilová's home country for "depicting the wanton", officially because of a scene where the main characters destroy a banquet, which apparently constitutes food wastage. And at the risk of sounding like an insufferable pseudo-intellectual with a bad sense of humour, I'm inclined to think that the Czech authorities simply came up with this as an excuse because they didn't have a rubber stamp for "I'm scared of films I don't understand".
Ah, damn, I'm reviewing a film, not doing an amateur political analysis. Dammit. Well, Daisies is...as a film, it's an acquired taste. The aesthetic is wedged somewhere between a Dadaist collage and a brightly pastel piece of 60s pop art (and, I'm sure, several other 20th century art movements I've never heard of). Never having been much of a fan of either movement, I can't really say I'm overly fond of the film's loosely connected scenes, brightly coloured filters and flashes of random imagery; but, of course, in socio-political context, heavy-handed efforts on the part of this film to defy as many conventions as possible are more than understandable.
One thing I do appreciate about the film, however, is its general tone. For one thing, it's consistently casual, light-hearted, and cheerily dismissive, which is more than I, personally, would be able to manage in an environment of relentless bureaucratic oppression. Some of the humour may not have translated too smoothly into the modern, English-speaking western world, but the general spirit remains distinct. In essence, the film displays much the same attitude as that of its two protagonists, who prance merrily through life with no cares, no restrictions, and little thought for anything at all. This film is not a steely-eyed revolutionary, but a giggling, bubbly, innocently rebellious schoolgirl that sticks out its tongue at the Soviet government (or the patriarchy, or the bourgeoisie, or whatever oppressive greater power one chooses to believe this film is defying) and then prances merrily on its way. It doesn't have to call for bombings or violent uprising; cheekily refusing to behave like a lady is all the rebellion this film needs.
I suppose that, simply as a film, Daisies is best suited to those with a taste for convention-defying 20th century post-war art movements. As a film produced in the context of Soviet Eastern Europe, however, it can be fascinating to regard the film within its broader context, to contemplate the sort of environment that can give rise to such a film as this, and to theorise exactly what this less than on-the-nose film wanted to whisper to the common people of Czechoslovakia just out of earshot of the censors.
Of course, if you're like me, and just find the concept of living under an oppressive, suffocating government depressing, you may want to give it a miss. It's a good film, but like most here, not for everyone.
URL: http://cinemasoddballs.blogspot.com/2014/11/daisies-1966-czechoslovakia.html
I suppose that, simply as a film, Daisies is best suited to those with a taste for convention-defying 20th century post-war art movements. As a film produced in the context of Soviet Eastern Europe, however, it can be fascinating to regard the film within its broader context, to contemplate the sort of environment that can give rise to such a film as this, and to theorise exactly what this less than on-the-nose film wanted to whisper to the common people of Czechoslovakia just out of earshot of the censors.
Of course, if you're like me, and just find the concept of living under an oppressive, suffocating government depressing, you may want to give it a miss. It's a good film, but like most here, not for everyone.
URL: http://cinemasoddballs.blogspot.com/2014/11/daisies-1966-czechoslovakia.html
Stalker (1979, USSR)
If I was asked to describe Stalker in a few words – which you really can’t do, but shut up – it would be 'very, very Soviet'.
Everything about this film exudes the atmosphere of the grim Soviet world in which it was made – the actors, who all have the sort of craggy, grimacing faces that only frigid Russian winds and the hardships of dictatorial oppression could produce; the backdrops, all industrial greyness and urban decay; the crew members who - this is certainly a unique touch - died of radiation poisoning after filming because the set was unsafe; and the tone that pervades the film – a tone not of despair, but of grim, dejected, sometimes darkly humorous resignation. It makes you wonder, really, what sort of other filmic experiences we might have been left with if those Soviet censors had been just a little less efficient.
Based loosely on Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s novel Roadside Picnic, two authors who had their own share of suffocating experiences with the USSR censors, the premise of the film is unusual, but simple: a man known as 'The Stalker' is approached by two men, The Writer and The Professor, who ask him to lead them into 'The Zone', a deserted and forbidden region, at the centre of which is reputed to lie 'The Room', a place which grants any man who enters it his deepest desire.
I'm conflicted about Stalker. On the one hand, at least on a superficial level, the film is...well, to put it bluntly, it's very very boring. It clocks in at over two and a half hours, but contains a comparatively negligible amount of stuff actually happening. Director Andrei Tarkovsky is renowned for his love of long, lingering shots of nothing in particular. It's intended, apparently, to allow the viewer greater immersion in the setting, a concept which, needless to say, doesn't exactly gel well with the average attention span of the smartphone generation; besides which, I personally fail to see why immersion should be treated as antithetical to watchability. Regardless of how one generally feels about Tarkovsky's work, I don't think any rational person could deny that his films can be very difficult to watch.
Everything about this film exudes the atmosphere of the grim Soviet world in which it was made – the actors, who all have the sort of craggy, grimacing faces that only frigid Russian winds and the hardships of dictatorial oppression could produce; the backdrops, all industrial greyness and urban decay; the crew members who - this is certainly a unique touch - died of radiation poisoning after filming because the set was unsafe; and the tone that pervades the film – a tone not of despair, but of grim, dejected, sometimes darkly humorous resignation. It makes you wonder, really, what sort of other filmic experiences we might have been left with if those Soviet censors had been just a little less efficient.
Based loosely on Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s novel Roadside Picnic, two authors who had their own share of suffocating experiences with the USSR censors, the premise of the film is unusual, but simple: a man known as 'The Stalker' is approached by two men, The Writer and The Professor, who ask him to lead them into 'The Zone', a deserted and forbidden region, at the centre of which is reputed to lie 'The Room', a place which grants any man who enters it his deepest desire.
I'm conflicted about Stalker. On the one hand, at least on a superficial level, the film is...well, to put it bluntly, it's very very boring. It clocks in at over two and a half hours, but contains a comparatively negligible amount of stuff actually happening. Director Andrei Tarkovsky is renowned for his love of long, lingering shots of nothing in particular. It's intended, apparently, to allow the viewer greater immersion in the setting, a concept which, needless to say, doesn't exactly gel well with the average attention span of the smartphone generation; besides which, I personally fail to see why immersion should be treated as antithetical to watchability. Regardless of how one generally feels about Tarkovsky's work, I don't think any rational person could deny that his films can be very difficult to watch.
Yet at the same time, the film most certainly has its moments, and those moments are often beautiful; sometimes unforgettable. Most striking, undoubtedly, is the film's backdrop. Shot primarily on the grounds of an abandoned industrial complex in Estonia, the set has the sort of authenticity that no billion-dollar budget could emulate. It's essentially a perfect blend of industrial and natural ugliness - a jagged set of great walls and dark corridors choked by tangled weeds and pools of radioactive water. I don't know, perhaps it's just the absurd obsession I have with abandoned urban and industrial buildings, but there were moments when I was so immersed in the grim beauty of the backdrop that I honestly did almost forget that there was almost nothing in particular actually happening.
And when stuff did happen, it was mostly long dialogues or monologues. All of the characters, it seems, are very fond of lengthy, vague philosophical discussions. And while these scenes weren't exactly thrilling, they had an accessibility that helped them avoid the sort of off-putting pretentiousness that tends to pervade the average arthouse production's attempts at profundity. Moreover, while the roles aren't exactly the most demanding, the three main characters do seem very well cast, and their actors bring out their core personalities well. Writer, for instance, has a sardonic, merrily cynical persona that his actor seems to revel in; while Stalker seems bent under a perpetual weight of melancholy that his actor reflected with almost disturbing sincerity.
But as a writer, perhaps the part that remained with me most was that quiet theme of subversiveness that was worked in amongst the philosophical introspection. The central theme of the film - a MacGuffin that grants one's deepest desire - is a pretty standard one in escapist fiction, but the film wholly averts playing to any of the standards of fantasy or science fiction. Instead, the film takes the opportunity to deconstruct the concept and examine its implications. What of the men whose deepest desires are to the detriment of humanity? What of the men whose own deepest desires are, in fact, far darker than they ever realised? And while I feel the topic could have been explored a little more, the concepts that the film opened the door to have long remained in my mind.
In absolute honesty, I probably couldn't watch Stalker again. Its artsiness was just a little bit heavy for my modern, internet-bred attention span. I can't even say I 'enjoyed' it in the usual sense. But I really can't deny that, as an experience, Stalker is a film that will stay with me far longer than any of the assembly line productions from Besson or Bay.
But as a writer, perhaps the part that remained with me most was that quiet theme of subversiveness that was worked in amongst the philosophical introspection. The central theme of the film - a MacGuffin that grants one's deepest desire - is a pretty standard one in escapist fiction, but the film wholly averts playing to any of the standards of fantasy or science fiction. Instead, the film takes the opportunity to deconstruct the concept and examine its implications. What of the men whose deepest desires are to the detriment of humanity? What of the men whose own deepest desires are, in fact, far darker than they ever realised? And while I feel the topic could have been explored a little more, the concepts that the film opened the door to have long remained in my mind.
In absolute honesty, I probably couldn't watch Stalker again. Its artsiness was just a little bit heavy for my modern, internet-bred attention span. I can't even say I 'enjoyed' it in the usual sense. But I really can't deny that, as an experience, Stalker is a film that will stay with me far longer than any of the assembly line productions from Besson or Bay.
