People who prefer Martyrs to Funny Games can ballls

I recently (well 2 or 3 weeks ago) saw the French film, Martyrs.
It's sort of a haunted house story (along the lines of a kind of supernatural Texas Chain Saw Massacre) mixed with Hostel and Saw.

Thinking back about the film, its pretty shoddy, but reading reviews on IMDB by 'users' it seems that many people loved it, one 'user' even comparing it to Funny Games, with Funny Games coming out worse.

For a start, No. For a finish, No.

Funny Games, (imo), is infinitely better than Martyrs (the original Funny Games).
Martyrs, reduced down to a two word review is in essence, Torture Porn. Ok, it mixes in supernatural elements of horror and the whole 'abused as a child' scenario at the beginning. But its not the creepy ghost girl at the beginning that stays with you after the film has finished, its the feeling of complete dread and disgust of paying fifteen pounds for something that, more or less, is Hostel with slightly more likeable characters, mostly because a) they're prettier, b) they're not American Yuppy Jock Boys and c) they spend most of their time in their knickers, which is partly the problem.

At the minute I'm trying (desperately) to write 15,000 words on the current trends in French Cinema (which explains why I would buy Martyrs in the first place). A film like Martyrs does not best represent the best of the trends in French film at the minute.
There's no originality, the ending is extremely poor and there's gross, inexplicable violence from about 15 minutes into the film, which only makes sense towards the end of the film.
Comparing Martyrs to a film like Funny Games not only makes me question why this 'user' would go to a film festival, it makes me question why he watches films anyway.

Funny Games is a postmodern Horror film analysing an audiences views on horror and the instigators of violence and terror on a family. Funny Games pauses halfway through and addresses the audience directly, questioning who they want to survive the ordeal.
Martyrs is a film that almost switches genre halfway through the film, and at the end of the film asks the audience "why did you pay for this shit?".

Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness

This is my last Balkland Cinema essay for my masters course. I'm pretty chuffed with the mark, which was 68%.

At the minute I'm trying to write my dissertation on French Cinema. I'm really starting to hate it.

Werckmeister Harmonies – gloom-laden metaphysics or a brilliant exploration of the human and social condition? Discuss.


Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, (2000) follows the arrival of a travelling circus including a whale and an unknown ‘Prince’ to an unnamed small provincial village, and the anarchy and destruction that takes over the inhabitants of the village and followers of the circus. The film is based on the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai.
In the film we see the world through Janos Valuksa’s eyes. We follow him as he completes his daily tasks; posting the mail, stoking Mr. Eszter’s fireplace to heat water and collecting Mr. Eszter’s lunch. Janos is the main carer for Mr. Eszter; an elderly gentleman and music theorist studying the work of Andreas Werckmeister. Janos is also a source of entertainment to the village drunks in a local bar; describing a solar eclipse and using the drunks as awkward props. Janos appears to be well educated; he understands the solar eclipse and can explain it in rudimentary terms to drunks in a bar, he also posts letters and newspapers around the village; giving him an important role within the small community. Although he appears quite intelligent, Janos also seems shy and self-conscious, and easily manipulated by those who would take advantage of him, such as Tunde; Mr. Eszter’s estranged wife. Janos lives alone and is rarely seen with anyone but Mr. Eszter throughout the film. Janos also appears quite religious, even with his knowledge of eclipses; he talks about god’s majesty in creating the great whale and talks about god when describing the eclipse at the start of the film.
The Prince and the whale that arrive in the village are part of a circus attraction that has gained many followers and many rumors along the way; some blaming the Prince for destruction and death, others blaming the inanimate whale. Rumours about the whale and Prince are first told in the post office; the women swapping between which party (the Prince or the whale) they think is to blame, the women also discuss the problems within their society.
Middle aged men who have followed the Prince and whale stand around the carriage near fires; these men are the main instigators of the violence that takes place later in the film; marauding through the village and hospital attacking the sick until a most abrupt and unexplained stop. The Prince is never shown on screen, and the only time he is presented to us as the audience is in the form of a shadow on the wall, the rest of the Prince’s illusion is just hearsay and rumour. The Prince doesn’t speak Hungarian and his commands and opinions are translated for the rest of the Hungarian speaking cast.
There are several women present in the film, but only Tunde, Mr. Eszter’s ex-wife, exercises control over events in the film, first over Janos and Mr. Eszter, then over the police captain and then finally over the army commander in the city after the hospital attack.

The film uses long takes to show what is happening. A steady-cam is used in almost all of the scenes, providing the film with an eerie voyeuristic gaze of the insanity that unfolds within the space of the film. The film is shot in black and white; adding to the hopelessness of the characters and making the film seem very stark and gloomy, which is re-represented in the characters. There is very little music used in the film also, only two pieces are used, which are both variations of the same arrangement.



In this essay I will analyze the film, looking at the issues it raises concerning human and social politics and the relationship between them. I will also discuss the use of metaphysical imagery and metaphor in the film, discussing the use of the whale and Prince.

Firstly, I will discuss the character of Janos Valuska, the main protagonist in the narrative.
The first scene of the film opens in a bar populated by drunks. The first shot is of a fire being extinguished in the bar. The image of the extinguished fire and the drunks falling off chairs and generally wandering around aimlessly works almost like a metaphor for the inhabitants of the town; their fire (or hope) has been extinguished and they have nothing left to live for. The town itself seems to be populated entirely by old men; the only people under fifty we see are Janos and the police captain’s sons, enforcing the idea that the town is dead, there is nothing there. The extinguishing of the fire could also be a metaphor for the battle between light and dark in the film, as Jeremy Heilman notes in his critique of the film at MovieMatyr.com (http://www.moviemartyr.com/2001/werckmeister.htm) the thematic element of dark versus light or good versus evil is prominent through the film, whether in the portrayal of the characters such as Janos and Tunde, or the metaphor of the Prince and the whale. The theme of dark versus light is also the subject of the first scene. In the first scene we are introduced to Janos, the main protagonist of the story. Janos makes his first appearance by being coaxed into explaining a solar eclipse to the drunks in the bar; using them as props. The language used by the drunks appears to show that this isn’t the first time Janos has told them about eclipses, and this may almost be a routine drinking game for them; a woman in the post office where Janos works asks him if everything is fine with the cosmos, implying that she has witnessed or heard about Janos’ evening activities.
The eleven minute opening shot not only introduces us to our main character, but also sets the mood of the film; the ‘ghost’ town where the scene is set, populated by old drunk men and very few women. Even the men who follow the Prince and circus to the town are of a certain age and not particularly young.
Although the opening scene appears like a disparaging comment on the state of the town, I find that Janos’ speech is rather hopeful; the total eclipse that will cover the town only lasts a few minutes, and after the madness experienced in those minutes has subsided everything will be ok again, as Janos says; “…but no need to fear. It's not over. For across the sun's glowing sphere, slowly, the Moon swims away. And the sun once again bursts forth, and to the Earth slowly there comes again light, and warmth again floods the Earth. Deep emotion pierces everyone. They have escaped the weight of darkness”.
The first scene establishes the use of the voyeuristic camera work employed throughout the film; within the eleven minute scene there are no cuts or edits, and the camera moves freely in between the drunks and Janos. Tarr has claimed that the restriction of eleven minutes on standard Kodak film is “a form of censorship” (Williams, (2003), Online), the use of such long roaming scenes (the entire film is only made up of thirty nine shots) may ostracize viewers more familiar with faster paced and less ideologically heavy pieces of film art. These types of shots and films have established Tarr as almost ‘anti-Hollywood’; tackling obscure subjects in many of his films; making ‘…bleak statements about the state of humanity…slow takes of crumbling walls and seemingly dispassionate contemplation of human violence and despair,’ (Iordanova, (2003), p154) using extremely long takes and creating extremely long films, as well as casting unknown actors, the most well known in Werckmeister Harmonies being Lars Rudolph; the man playing Janos.
The use of an almost constant gaze of the camera effectively closes off the rest of the world to the audience, in standard films the use of cutting and editing makes the focus of the film seem a lot wider when compared with Werckmeister Harmonies. The camera acts like an eye focused on Janos and his life in the town; wherever Janos goes, we as the audience follow. Only when Janos has lost his mind does the film seem to open out, probably because Janos is not in shot and we are allowed to see another point of view; that of Mr. Eszter.

Janos appears to get on well with the village inhabitants where he lives; he addresses most of the older generation as ‘Uncle’ or ‘Aunt’ and seems to know more or less everyone, which could be because of his job as a postman.
Janos is also the first character in the film to go and see the whale; in fact he is the first to see it arrive in the town; as Janos is returning home after completing his posting route we see the massive silver case containing the whale start to engulf the small houses in its shadow, perhaps foreshadowing the destruction and violence the whale and Prince bring with them. “When the massive truck carrying the giant whale that is the sideshow’s main attraction arrives, it seems to dwarf the town, stopping the light from reaching anything that it passes by,” (Heilman, (2002), Online). The truck that brings the circus into the village appears almost demonic; its headlights beaming out into the darkness of the town and the low rumbling of the engine make it seem like the truck may almost be alive, lurching towards its destination.
The rumours about the whale and the Prince arrive before they do. In the post office the sorting women talk about the disappearance of families around the village, as well as the burglaries and other violent attacks that seem to becoming more frequent in their village, the hotel owner; ‘Uncle Karsci’ also comments on the source of the increasing attacks, saying that no-one knows who inspires the attacks. ‘They also say, the whales got no part in it. Then the next moment, the whale’s the cause of it all’. The constant air of rumour throughout the film seems to be embellished upon by everyone who recites a tale that a friend of a friend told them, or something ‘they’ said. The feeling of unease and confusion created by the rumours highlights the lack of causality throughout the film; there are no explanations for most of the events that the film documents. The main reasons for the violence shown near the end of the film are never revealed, and left up to the audience’s interpretations. One argument could be the mass hysteria created by the arrival of the circus; the Prince’s speech stirs up a frenzy of activity in his followers as he planned. The destruction of the hospital, town square and village begins with an almost Hitler-esque tirade in favour of the destruction of everything this small community holds dear. Srikanth Srinivasan has commented that the film charts the rise of fascism through the eyes of one person (http://theseventhart.info/2009/04/19/flashback-52/). Though I can certainly see the links between the rise of racism, Hitler and the events in the film, I’m not sure if this is the most prominent reading of the film, as it chooses to ignore many of the metaphysical aspects, as well as tenuous links between the rise of the fascists and the arrival of a dead whale and Prince in a small provincial town.
Rather than commenting exclusively on the social features I believe the film is an exploration of human factors and issues. The characters of Tunde, the Prince and to some extent the circus owner use the people around them to create opportunities that will benefit their lives in a ‘ghost’ town.
The circus owner travels around the country and exhibits circus ‘attractions’ like the Prince and the whale. Although the Prince could potentially be the cause or instigator of the violence towards the end of the film, he is forced to ‘perform’ in the circus by the owner. The Prince’s speech at the climax of the film seems to instigate the violence propagated by his followers, many of the rumours foreshadowing his arrival in the village actually come true in the violence; people are killed, raped and buildings and property are destroyed.
Tunde, Mr. Eszter’s ex-wife has gained a position of authority by sleeping with the police captain, and is not afraid to intimidate her ex-husband by threatening to live with him if he doesn’t do what she requires. Although this position of power is not official, the police captain has no control over the town, appearing drunk and angry in Tunde’s flat, shouting at the television while Tunde humours him. This scene ends with the police captain and Tunde dancing in a doorway with their bed behind them in view; this shot implies that the captain has trapped himself with Tunde; and she will use all her power to get what she wants. As we see after the attacks on the hospital, she is directing the army; another position of power is gained, and with the police captain incapacitated; there is no one left to claim back rightful control. There are slight hints that Tunde could be behind the brutality seen at the end of the film, as she is the only one to profit from the destruction of the town; when we see her at the end of the film she is pointing at a map with the army commander, perhaps choosing her next residence.

The violence towards the end of the film could be considered an attack on knowledge; the mob outside the trailer smash everything that science has created; medicine, equipment, they even attack and rape the women in the post office, which could be considered an attack on literacy; the women in the post office could obviously read, whereas the mob never seem to enter the trailer to gain knowledge about the wider world around them; they just see to stand around the trailer and drink, waiting for the Prince to appear before them and inspire violence and hatred.
The abrupt stop to the violence comes at the climax of the scene; after the marauding followers of the Prince have destroyed equipment and attacked the sick or injured in the hospital; going from room to room in an orgy of destruction. The camera, in its ever present voyeuristic gaze follows every aspect of the attack, following men into rooms as they pull people out of bed and attack them. Although this is the only attack we see in the film, the choreographed nature of the violence along with the gaze of the camera makes it seem, as Jeremy Heilman notes, that this is not the first attack of the night; “Tarr shows us only the destruction of one building, but the impressionistic and highly stylized way that he shows it (using choreographed moves and a tracking shot so that we can connect all of the damage that we see) suggests that these same events have occurred everywhere,” (2002), Online). The tracking shot used by the director makes every aspect of the attacks unavoidable and unwatchable at the same time; “Tarr’s sequences have time as the primary axis on which movements are choreographed. Instead of questions like ‘What will he do next?’ we are forced to ask questions like ‘When will this motion end?’ “ (Srinivasan, (2009), Online).
The waltz of destruction that we are shown in the hospital comes to an abrupt end when the groups of men get to the end of the corridor, where a bathroom is situated. After pulling down the curtain hiding the bathroom from view, the men and the audience are present with the view of an old and very frail naked man. The sight of the old man makes the entire violence stop and the men embark on a hasty retreat. The exact reason for the retreat is again left up to the audience’s interpretation. The sight of the old man is such a pitiable sight, even for the audience, let alone the men who have caused all the pain and suffering in the past sequence, that it has shocked them out of their anger and made them rethink their motives.

The title Werckmeister Harmonies is a reference to Andreas Werckmeister, who gave the octave twelve half step notes; taking away what Mr. Eszter refers to in one scene as ‘divine tuning’; “…the Werckmeister scale, upon which the musical octave is based, is a false construct, and is not true to natural sound since it cannot convey the full range possible in nature’ (Heilman (2002), Online). The gift of knowledge is attacked throughout the film, not only in the destruction of scientific methods and equipment, but in the destruction of Janos’ mind. Although the idea of Werckmeister’s tonal scale is deemed as against nature in the film, the ‘natural’ order propagated by the mob and the Prince destroy everything, and the musical incarnation of this; seen in the police captain’s children, is anything but tuneful; both the children shouting and banging on various things in what seems like their parent’s bedroom as Janos tries in vain to get them to go to sleep. There are references to the Prince in this scene; as one of the children shouts through the fan: “I’ll be hard on you!!” the voice sounds like that of the Prince, foreshadowing the fate of Janos after the Prince-inspired attacks on the town.



Janos and Mr. Eszter appear to be the only well educated people in the town, (apart from Tunde, who uses her intelligence to gain power) by the end of the film Janos is left staring into space in a psychiatric ward. The roles of Janos and Mr. Eszter are reversed by the end of the film; Eszter is left to dote on Janos, who has lost his mind due to the violence he has witnessed in the destruction of knowledge in his village and the destruction of knowledge in his mind. After the violence has erupted in the village the authorities start to look for the participants; one of them being Janos, though he claims he didn’t take part. The slow shot that reveals that Janos was present at the time of the attack does not seem to incriminate him, but it doesn’t do him any favours either; the audience is left to decide whether he had any part to play or not. This is much like the conundrum set up at the beginning of the film; “They also say, the whales got no part in it. Then the next moment, the whale’s the cause of it all’.
The purpose of the whale in the film is open to many readings; it could be as simple as Janos says; to establish god’s creativity with creatures and the variation in nature. Janos also seems to have a relationship with the whale, visiting it on occasions to talk to it, once proclaiming about all the trouble ‘it has caused’. The whale could symbolise the world outside the town; somewhere where knowledge and experiences are welcomed and acknowledged rather than feared and fought against. By the end of the film, the whale’s ‘case’ and the ‘circus’ has been destroyed, only the whale is left. If the whale was to blame for the violence, perhaps it would have been destroyed by the mob, along with the circus and most of the village. The whale could be seen as the Prince’s talisman; something that could install faith in what he has to say and back up his arguments.
There is no solid proof about what the whale could symbolise and along with Janos’ participation in the violence, must be left up to the audience to decide. I believe that the whale could symbolise all of Janos’ and the village’s hopes and dreams, and is also representative of knowledge. By the end of the film; after the violence seen in the hospital and Janos’ breakdown, Mr. Ester walks past the upturned whale and destroyed circus; Janos’ knowledge and home has been destroyed, along with his hopes for the future.
The whale and Janos could also be linked, as well as the Prince and Tunde; as they are both effectively left in the same state by the end of the film.
The whale; lifeless and staring out into space, much like Janos, and the Prince and Tunde; gaining authority and control over other people through their use of knowledge and power.
The beginning of the Prince’s rant starts with a tirade of abuse hurled at the Director of the circus, and then begins to form on the towns and peoples:
“There’s no point in arguing! The Prince alone sees the whole. And the whole is nothing, completely in ruins. What they build and what they will build, what they do and what they will do, is delusion and lies. Under construction, everything is only half complete. In ruins, all is complete. What they think is ridiculous. They think it because they are afraid. And he who is afraid knows nothing. The director doesn’t understand that his followers are not afraid and do understand him. His followers are going to make ruins of everything!”
Tunde and the Prince share the same ideals and views on people and money. Tunde convinces Janos to approach Eszter for money for her cause, and to gain support using his good standing in the village;
“By doing this I gave up the position due to me in the town. Now it is his turn. Now he has to make a sacrifice. That’s easy to understand. You do understand, Janos? So with the police chief, and some more people of good will we are establishing a movement, which will restore order, create cleanliness and we are procuring the necessary funds. You can see that a movement like this needs a chairman, a strong individual, who has influence over others, who is persuasive”, although these two plots have seemingly different outcomes; i.e. the destruction of the hospital and the gaining of power, their fruition is remarkably similar.
Both events add to the downfall of Janos, even though his participation in either is hard to pinpoint; much like the role of the whale in the Prince’s plot: “They also say, the whales got no part in it. Then the next moment, the whale’s the cause of it all’. The narration by Janos after the attack adds more confusion over his involvement, as Jonathon Romney concludes “...his part in the terrible night remains unclear: when he reads a diary account of events we never quite know whether he's reading a narrative of his own involvement or whether he has 'authored' the events in a more oblique way whether he has somehow, if only by passive collusion with Tünde, catalysed the apocalypse.” (2007), Online).

Werckmeister Harmonies starts with an almost comical scene in a bar, and ends with our hero broken and mindless in hospital. The whale, the Prince and different characters throughout the film all add to his downfall.
The use of the almost mythical being of the whale adds a supernatural element to the film, and works to add confusion over the subject matter. Whether or not the director’s intention was to confuse the audience with the inclusions of such a creature is unknown, but the analogies of the whale representing the knowledge of the wider world, unavailable to the town or the link between Janos and the whale and their intertwined fates all add metaphorical meaning to the film. The equally mythical character of the Prince; representing the hatred and violence that can be born out of ignorance and fear is at odds with the representation of the whale.
The metaphysical representation of the whale, Prince and the use of characters add extra layers of meaning throughout the film, with connotations of the rise of fascism, the fear of knowledge and change in a small community and the notion of a wider world yet to be explored.
The artistry in creating the film is apparent through the use of steady-cam, long takes and black and white photography. The long, floating camera work effectively closing off the world outside the shot and focusing entirely on what the director wants us to see. The voyeuristic camera gaze almost adds an extra character to the film; pushing a sense of guilt on the audience as we watch a hospital being torn apart in front of our eyes. The black and white photography emphasizing the hopelessness in the village, and the lack of change and difference in their lives, even with the approach of a solar eclipse, than non bar Janos (and presumably Mr. Eszter and Tunde) seem to understand.

Bibliography
Burns, B (1996) World Cinema Five: Hungary, Wiltshire; Flick Books
Cunningham, J (2004) Hungarian Cinema: From Coffee House to Multiplex, London: Wallflower Press
Iordanova, D (2003) Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film, London: Wallflower

Websites
Ebert, R (2007) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070908/REVIEWS08/70909001 accessed on 10th May 2009.
Heilman, J (2002) http://www.moviemartyr.com/2001/werckmeister.htm accessed on 14th May 2009.
Kilnger, G (2000) http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/tarr.html accessed on 12th May 2009.
Mapes, M (No Date) http://www.moviehabit.com/reviews/wer_b806.shtml accessed on 13th May 2009.
Romney, J (2007) http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/1394/ accessed on 10th May 2009.
Schlosser, E (2000) http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/30/belatarr1.html accessed on 10th May 2009.
Srinivasan, S (2009) http://theseventhart.info/2009/04/19/flashback-52/ accessed on 9th May 2009.
Williams, R (2003) http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/apr/19/artsfeatures accessed on 10th May 2009.

Kanal

Kanal, (Wajda 1956)

Kanal (Wajda, 1956) is the story of a doomed Polish resistance company trying escape German occupied Warsaw. The film follows the members of the company in the last few hours of their lives, as they fight against the German army and descend into the sewers underneath the city to try to escape to freedom. The film focuses on the characters of Daisy, Sub Lieutenant Zorab, and Lieutenant Zadra as they make their way through the sewers, though there are several major characters that we are introduced to in the first shot of the film, and we follow their fated journey into the sewers.
The film deals with the breakdown of communication between the soldiers in the sewer, and between the commanding officers and the troops they are supposed to be commanding. It also looks at the relationships forged by the soldiers in battle.
The film follows the soldiers in their ‘final hours’ as they experience the terrors of the German invasion of the Mokotów district in Warsaw, although we don’t see any fighting and the Germans never venture into the sewer, we are constantly aware of the peril awaiting the resistance above them, mostly due to the sense of claustrophobia created by Wadja through the use of pans, lighting, noise and camera angles used while the resistance make their way through the sewers.

The first shot of the film shows us the destroyed district of Mokotów where the resistance company that we follow is based. The main credits and title sequence run over documentary footage of a ruined Warsaw, enforcing the immensity of the Warsaw Uprising and the subsequent battles that followed the insurrection, it also creates a stark contrast to the claustrophobia that the audience and the troops are subjected to throughout the majority of the film. The opening voiceover contained in these shots introduces each of the main characters and some of their traits, as well as letting the audience know what will become of the company before the events have unfolded; "Watch them closely, for these are the last hours of their lives." The voiceover is strange because it uses different phrases to describe what we are seeing, at the end of the monologue the voice uses the phrase “their lives”, and then to describe Michael, the voice uses “he joined us yesterday”, leaving the origin and fate and the connection to the company of the voiceover unknown.
The shots accompanying the ghostly narration make use of long pan shots, shots that incorporate lots of action or background movement, again, contrasting the claustrophobic conditions experienced in the sewers of the title later in the film ‘…deep focus enables spectators to roam within the image and so propagates freedom…’1 The use of deep focus also allows us to see what is happening behind the main characters in the shot, many times when characters are having a conversation in front of the camera we can see other troops moving about behind them, again, contrasting with the tight camera angles and claustrophobic atmosphere created in the sewer. The shot that introduces us to the company that we follow through the film is a long tracking shot that follows the soldiers as they walk battle weary, into a makeshift base, fashioned from a disused hotel. The shot takes in all the surroundings that the soldiers walk through, and as well as introducing us to the main characters (Halinka, Kadra etc) it also allows us to see the other members of the company Zadra commands. While at the hotel base, a graveyard is frequently seen at the front of the hotel in tracking shots, foreshadowing the future of the company, and the Polish resistance.
In the shots outside of the sewers, the soldiers can walk freely past the camera and in and out of shot making the camera seem almost omniscient, allowing us to see anything at anytime, where as in the sewers, the soldiers rarely walk up to the camera and then past it, instead walking up to the camera and either stopping, or walking away from the camera until out of shot. ‘The moment the fighters move underground the camera loses its freedom to roam; the claustrophobia is emphasised when they now move past it…’2 While in the sewer the camera remains very still, and uses close range shots on the actors in frame (especially Daisy and Korab) to create the sense of claustrophobia felt by the characters.
Although the claustrophobia of the sewers is paramount towards the end of the film, the sense of claustrophobia is used in the first half of the film as well. When Michael (the artist) telephones his family in German occupied territory, the camera moves in for an extreme close up on Michael’s face when he realises his family are about to die. “There is a composer who manages to phone his wife in the centre, only to have the phone line cut off – presumably by the Gestapo.”3 The extreme close up coupled with dark lighting around Michael foreshadows the conditions in the sewer, as well as emphasising Michaels plight; listening to his family being murdered while being powerless to help them, leaving him trapped.

The idea of real life crossing into the cinematic scope has been used in Kanal; Michael’s phone call home is one example of a real event breaking into the story. Of course, the actual escape through the sewers did take place, but many other events in the film could have based on real life events, taken from the screen writer’s memory, who himself fought in the Polish Uprising. Real-life events are referenced throughout the film; the lack of ammunition and weapons for the Polish fighters is highlighted when Halinka receives a tiny pistol from Madry, it is further emphasised when Zadry comments on the state of the arms; “…pistols and grenades against tanks and bombers,” the documentary footage at the start of the film and the references to real events anchors the film in real-life, although the characters are fictional.
The scene where Kadra’s company enter the sewer uses images of civilians trying to enter to sewers to escape the advancing Germans, while one woman looks for her blonde daughter and pleading with Kadra’s unit not to leave.
Although we know, obviously, that a lot of film-making is fictional and rarely based on fact, the use of documentary footage and the re-telling of stories of the Polish Uprising in Kanal makes us question what is based on fact and what is entirely fictional, because Kanal is one of the few films about the Polish Uprising, the blurring of documentary and fiction film is easier to accomplish because of the lack of information or other points of view about the issues it presents.
The individual stories of the characters only emphasise their ultimate downfall, when the story splits into three after the company descend into the sewers we follow three narratives; that of Kula, Smuckly, Zadra and the rest of the company, Madry, Halinka and Michael and Daisy and Zorab. The three sets of characters all have the same objective: to reach the exit of the sewer in the middle of the city, but only one person, Daisy, knows the correct route through the labyrinth of tunnels underneath ruined Warsaw and appears to have the most common sense out of the company, when the other soldiers run and panic about the frequent gas attacks, Daisy calmly states, “Idiots, the sewers always smell of gas,” but instead of guiding her company through, she decides to stay with her injured lover, Korab, choosing to help him get to safety, although if she had stayed with her company, they all would have been saved. When Daisy and Korab finally reach the correct exit to the sewers, Korab is too weak to climb up and out to safety. If Daisy had stayed with her company, there would have been enough men to carry Korab out of the sewers. This is one of the many breakdowns in communication that destroys Kadra’s company. The most crucial and obvious breakdown is when Kula lies to Kadra about the state of his troops, this is one of three lies that has an impact on the members of the company, two of the three resulting in death, the first, Kula’s, not only results in his own death, but that of Kadra and the rest of the company. The second concerns Madry and Halinka. Earlier in the film we see Madry and Halinka in bed together, and it becomes evident that they appear to love each other. However, when Madry reveals that he has a wife and a daughter, or “something worth living for,” Halinka takes the gun that Madry had given to her previously and shoots herself, leaving Madry in the sewer alone. The lies of Madry and Kula result in their own deaths. Kula gets shot as a coward by the enraged Kadra, and Madry, we can presume, joins the rest of the dead Polish soldiers shot by the Germans waiting at the sewer exit.
When Madry exits the sewers we are treated to a comparison of the first few shots of the film, a pan shot reveals the dead and captured Poles being held at gunpoint by a German tank unit. Ironically, the German that strips Madry of his gun also takes away the only things he has to live for, his wife and child. Taking the photo and wedding ring he shows to Halinka in the sewer effectively robs him of his life and imposes the fact that he will be shot along with his comrades.
The lie told by Daisy to Korab is a lie of compassion. Although Daisy and Korab have made it to an exit, it is barred and they can only stare at their freedom which has been denied. Daisy insists that Korab keep his eyes closed, and describes green grass and trees that Korab imagined he was walking through earlier, although at the time, the realist in Daisy argued back, saying “A load of crap,” and destroying Zorab’s fantasy. The lie told by Daisy is told to keep Korab’s hope alive, she then holds him as he dies, the camera turning away to stare through the bars of the sewer.
The breakdown of communication in the command chain is also seen throughout the film. When Kadra is told of the plan to enter the sewer, he criticizes it, commenting throughout the film about the smallest of chances that he and his troops will survive the conflict even before they venture into the tunnels underneath the city. When he meets a fellow officer they talk about the battles, commenting that they might have a “good death,” Kadra goes on to say that his fellow officer speaks like a “true pole.”
The breakdown in communication with the commanding officers and their troops is highlighted when the company encounter an insane general in the sewer. At first, they can only hear unintelligible shouts that they barley recognise as human. When they discover the source of the noises, they discover an ex-general left at the bottom of the sewer, crying out. The general is later seen floating down the sewer by Daisy and Korab; the line of communications with the commanding officers above ground has been completely obliterated, and is floating away with the dead general.
As Coates states, the initial reason for the Polish Uprising is left completely omitted from Kanal and the main objective of the company is not to engage, but to evade the Germans at all costs, leaving the focus of the film on the characters, rather than what they are fighting for, and the breakdown of communication between the commanding officers and their troops, and the troops themselves.4
The last shot of the film is particularly harrowing, Zadra has shot Kula and descends into the sewer, pausing to have one last look at ruined Warsaw, he turns his head around from left to right, at one point looking straight at the camera, then going back down into the dark sewer to rescue “his boys”.

Kanal uses mise-en-scéne and the opening voiceover to create claustrophobia and a sense of looming danger throughout the film. The use of documentary footage at the start embeds the narrative in a real setting, making the character’s experiences, fears and deaths seem real as well as blurring the lines between fiction and reality to engross the viewer in the events on screen.








References
1. Coates, (2005), p.32
2. Coates , (2005), p120
3. Bren, (1990), p.35)
4. Coates, (2004), p.119

Bibliography

Bren, F (1990) World Cinema One: Poland; Wiltshire, Flicks Books

Coates, P (2005) The Red and the White; The Cinema Of People’s Poland; London, Wallflower Press

Orr J and Ostrowska E (eds) (2003) The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda; The Art of Irony and Defiance, London; Wallflower Press

Le Feu Follet (Malle, 1963)

I was a bit at odds with what to watch last night, torn between '5x2' by Francois Ozon and this film (Le Feu Follet) by Louis Malle.
In the end I chose Le Feu Follet because it had a prettier name, and I could sort of remember what it was about without having to google it, or bang it into the ever reliable 'resource' of Wikipedia.

Le Feu Follet follows the story of Alain Leroy, a recovering alcoholic who decides to end his life. The film follows him on his last few days in Paris and the surrounding areas, as he visits his friends, trying to find a reason to carry on living.
The film is shot in black and white and adds to the starkness and depression that Alain is suffering from, seeing his world (which spans to one room when he is not visiting friends) in black and white not only adds to the depression he is feeling, but also seems to draw lines or barriers between things that are not normally noticeable.
The barrier between Alain's girlfriend in a taxi and Alain is more noticeable for instance, not only because of their separation in the frame, but Alain's reluctance to travel to New York with her.

The next morning Alain calmly narrates 'Tomorrow I'll kill myself', which at the time seems like a very 'off the cuff' remark, but as we explore his world and his relationships with other characters we can see that he really has nothing enjoyable left to live for.

The Beach

The Beach (Boyle, 2000)

The Beach is a film based on the novel of the same name by Alex Garland. The film follows a young American; Richard, travelling around Thailand. In his travels he meets Francoise and Etienne, a French couple, whom he travels to a mysterious island with. The island (and the ‘beach’) was first mentioned to him by Daffy, an unhinged Scotsman who leaves a copy of a map to the beach to Richard after his suicide, Daffy reappears to Richard in various hallucinations throughout the film.

The film is fully narrated by Richard, and we hear his thoughts and feelings while we travel with him. The film addresses issues concerning western and eastern cultures and how they can combine and clash, issues of identity and ‘paradise’ are also raised during the film, as well as man versus nature. The Beach also blurs the line between a ‘mainstream’ Hollywood film and an ‘art-film’; using techniques from both to entertain and inform the audience of the narrative. Bordwell notes that “Art-cinema narration has become a coherent mode partly by defining itself as a deviation from classical narrative” (Bordwell, (1985), p228), The Beach can be classed as a ‘Hollywood’ narrative; it follows a linear pattern and never really deviates from its main subject, Richard. The one thing that sets it aside from other Hollywood narratives is the characterisation of the protagonists. The characters appear to be similar to art cinema characters. Richard, the main character, is unsure of what he wants; the beach, Francoise or both. This goes against Bordwell’s notion of ‘classical narration’ in Hollywood cinema; the protagonist is usually the causal driving force, the primary source of identification for the audience and the source of narrative. (Bordwell, (1985), p.157) although Richard is the primary character, he does not conform to the Hollywood ‘leading man’ stereotype; he is unhappy and has no direction, the narration he provides over the scenes also makes the thoughts and feelings he experiences much more obvious to the audience, expressing his negativity and lack of direction. Kristin Thompson claims that “Hollywood protagonists tend to be active, to seek out goals and pursue them, rather than having those goals thrust upon them” ((1999) p.14). Richard is the exact opposite to this definition of Hollywood character; he is unaware of his goals or what he wants. Until given a task by Sal to get back the map from the surfers, Richard has had no ‘goals’ other than getting to the island, even at the end of the film, Richard and the islanders are told to leave by the farmers, rather than making the decision to move away from Sal’s dictatorship of their own accord. The characters in The Beach and in ‘Art Cinema’ are far less goal oriented than their Hollywood counterparts; the narrative in the film is pushed forward more by the characters’ development than cause and effect in general, or alternatively one could say that the ‘cause and effect’ is initiated by the characters; e.g. Richard leaves the map and the American surfers follow him to the secret island, which causes the inhabitants of the island to leave, rather than the cause being a problem and the effect being how to solve the problem. The idea of ‘the beach’ is also similar to an ‘art cinema’ storyline, the whole island is bathed in mystery, neither the audience or the characters know if it exists or is totally make believe, the film is more about personal discovery than a battle to save the island or to get the girl.

The first scene opens with a shot of Richard sitting on a bench bathed in white light. Above him are several numbers running along the top of the screen. The opening shot almost looks like film from a negative photo, enforcing the fact that Richard comes from a digital, technological culture. The differences between traditional eastern cultures and western cultures are highlighted when compared with the next image; the golden image of Buddha lying on its side, bringing the traditional culture of Thailand into the film, only to ignore it later in the westernized Thai market place, and throughout the film in general. While Richard is in front of the white light, people and vehicles blur past him, but when in front of the image of Buddha the cars and people seem to move a lot more slowly, reinforcing the cultural differences.
The opening scene also enforces the fact that we know nothing about our narrator, whether he is reliable, where he comes from or where he is going. The first time we see Richard he is in negative, the first lines he speaks are: “My name is Richard. So what else do you need to know? Stuff about my family, or where I'm from? None of that matters.”
The first scene establishes that we are on a journey as well as the characters, a journey of discovery about them; who they are, what their aims are and what they will do to get what they want. The voice over by Richard helps to impose the idea of travelling into the unknown without any plan or regard for consequences, or with people we trust.
Much like the characters of ‘art cinema’ the three main characters of The Beach are on a journey of self discovery, rather than to change or acquire something. This is apparent throughout the film, rather than ‘cause and effect’ being the main catalyst for plot and narrative, the characters cause the events, and have to deal with the effects. Richard seems to fulfil the roles of protagonist and antagonist by himself, supplying the map to American surfers Sammy and Zeph, and then assisting in getting them shot by the marijuana farmers, again blurring the lines between traditional Hollywood cinema and ‘Art-Cinema’ stereotypes. His character traits are also not what you would expect to find in leading man; he lies several times throughout the film to get out of trouble. He lies to Sal about the map several times and to Francoise about sleeping with Sal. The Beach also brings up questions about morals and the idea that they can be lost. When Christoph is bitten by the shark no one wants him in the camp and he is banished to the forest to die. The only person who maintains their moral grip on reality is Etienne, who stays with Christoph and looks after him, the rest of the tribe don’t want to be reminded of death or have their fun spoilt.

The scene in the market could be considered a typical technical ‘Hollywood’ scene, and is very much in keeping with the Hollywood traditions enforced and used in the film.
Another aspect of the film to consider is the major ‘star’ and the studio’s productions values. Leonardo DiCaprio is the major star of The Beach and at the time was a rising star in Hollywood; giving the film more publicity and added mainstream attention. The controversy surrounding the actual construction of ‘the beach’ also should be considered; the production company changed the landscape of where the film was set to make it a ‘paradise’, without considering the effects on nature, natural wildlife or the inhabitants. This factor should be considered when analysing the film’s themes and motifs; the idea of leaving your ‘old life’ behind and travelling somewhere to start a new life in ‘paradise’ like the island or the beach, without considering the implications of what you are about to do, or the effect cultures have on each other and how they can clash or blend together. The Thai market scene is a good example of how two cultures can mix and collide. Original Thai traditions are kept to back alleys, where as the western consumerist attitudes are thrust upon travellers, the traditional cultural aspects of Thailand like religion and the New Year celebrations have to make concessions for Western rituals like shopping, drinking and television. The use of a steadi-cam is allows us to fully explore the market, giving the audience the feel of the hustle and bustle. It also employs bright fluorescent lighting which is totally opposed to the shot of the Buddha lying down in the opening scene, the lighting in the scene almost gives the Buddha a golden glow and there is no hustle and bustle, the smooth tracking shot following Richard seems peaceful and serene, much like the image of Buddha, again enforcing the cultural traditions of Thailand. The traditions are forgotten when Richard arrives in the market, and the only mention of Thai culture is the celebration of the New Year with water, (although, this is only made clear in the deleted scenes), the rest of the market appears heavily westernized, and as Richard narrates he comments on the market, saying that you could pick up cheap knock offs and counterfeit watches of a westernized culture. Traditional cultural customs are kept in back alleys away from ‘tourists’, like the ‘snake blood’ sequence, and the attitude of the inhabitants of the secret island in general; they want to keep part of their culture hidden and undiluted by the tourists, this is further emphasised when we meet Daffy, who calls the guests at a hostel ‘parasites’ and ‘cancers’, referring to their tourist status, although they are just the same as the people living on the island.
The idea of a western culture consumerism remains on the island; it is shown when Richard collects shopping for the inhabitants when he goes with Sal to Ko Pang Yang. In the beginning scene Richard asks what the point of travelling across the world to check into a hotel will all the comforts of home is, and then when arriving back at the consumerist Ko Pang Yang, he collects things to make the inhabitants back on the island more comfortable, the reliance of their old lives making an impact on their new lives on the beach. Preconceptions about island life are also used; when Richard arrives he thought the island might be people living in relative squalor, in a cave or in mud huts or tents. This idea is further enforced when we first meet Keaty after the dive into the lagoon under the waterfall; he fulfils every stereotype of an Amazonian male warrior, but speaks with an English accent, bringing to our attention the different mix of cultures and languages that could be apparent on the island as well preconceptions about peoples lives before they arrived on the beach.
Languages are also an important part of the The Beach, in one scene in the hut the villagers are trying to learn a language from the large pool of different languages available (“I will ride for many miles on my bicycle tomorrow”). Languages are used to communicate in The Beach, and also to hide behind. When Swede Christoph has been bitten by the shark he reverts back to speaking Swedish, even though in many scenes we have seen and heard him talking English, he hides behind his language hoping that it will get him back to the mainland.

Colour is used a lot during the opening of The Beach; when in the market place, the lights surround Richard as he walks through, some of the colours are used as signifiers; when talking to the ‘snake-blood’ trader, both men are bathed in red light, possibly indicating danger. Red is used significantly throughout the film, the snake blood scene, the use of blood and the tent Christoph is banished to are all red, the use of red stands out because of colour of the beach and its surrounding, mostly greens, blues and browns, the use of red usually brings connotations of danger or blood. At the mainland when the surfers approach Richard they are bathed in red light, possible indicating a future event. Richard steals a red headband from one of the farmers, referencing Rambo, but also letting his presence in the jungle known to the farmers. Richard assumes the dominant male position in the community by killing a shark, as he tells the story through flashbacks; he is covered in the shark’s blood. Sal also frequently wears something that is coloured red.
After the shark attack on the beach red is a much more prominent colour throughout the rest of the film; there is a red scar across the beach where the injured fishermen have been dragged, possibly indicating that the beach or nature has had its revenge on the community for playing with nature and making fun of it through stories about killing sharks and ‘shaping’ the paradise they live in and using an island as their own personal playground, which is mirrored in the production trouble the director had with the setting he created and changed to shoot the film.
Colour is used in the opening scene to draw lines between the different cultures and traditions; the golden glow of the image of Buddha is warm and welcoming, whereas the environment from where Richard emerges is bleak, sterile and medical looking and the fluorescent lights of the market place and Ko Pang Yang are dazzling. The editing in Ko Pang Yang is also very fast when compared to the island, there are lots of shots in a short space of time of people falling in and out of nightclubs, throwing up and dancing to loud music. Some of the shots come in and out of focus and blur slightly to put the viewer on edge. When compared to the slow sweeping shots of island life the Ko Pang Yang scenes seem very intimidating, and further enforce the idea that island life is sacred, and paradise is exclusive, not everyone can experience it, and no one, including someone like Christoph who hunted for the community should be able to destroy the sanctity that Sal, Bugs and others have created.

The differences in culture are highlighted throughout the film by using mise-en-scene, the differences between traditional Hollywood films and Art-Cinema films are highlighted in the same way. The soundtrack changes between the hustle and bustle of the mainland and the market place to island life; island life being much more chilled out and almost tribal sounding, when compared to the heavy bass lines and dance music overheard in Ko Pang Yang and the market place at the opening. The lighting on the island seems a lot more natural, there isn’t the harshness of fluorescent light used in the market or the mainland, giving the islanders a softer glow, much like the image of Buddha in the opening scene. In one particular scene in the hut on the island, Sal lies in the same position as the image of Buddha in the opening, giving us the impression of an almost god like control and presence over the island and its inhabitants.
This established further when she exercises her control over the islanders, refusing to let one got to see a dentist, banishing Richard from the community until he retrieves the copied map and the other islander’s reluctance to return to the mainland to get Richard to accompany her. When Richard eventually goes to the mainland with Sal she acquires control over him when she finds out that he made a copy of the map, buying her silence with sexual intercourse.

Water is used in The Beach to signify rebirth or a new life. When Richard, Etienne and Francoise jump from the waterfall their new life on the beach begins. The first time Richard and Francoise have sex is in the lagoon in front of the beach, they emerge from the water and begin a relationship. This idea is repeated during the final scene where the former inhabitants of the island float home on a raft and water is used to ‘cleanse’ Richard after he has seen the American surfers shot by the farmers, after the plunge into the pool underneath the waterfall he realises that he and his two French companions must leave the island. The first time Richard and Francoise have sex is in the lagoon in front of the beach, they emerge from the water and begin a relationship. The idea of new life coming form or out of water could be carried through from the Thai celebrating New Year with water, washing off the old year and beginning a new one with a fresh mind start.

According to Bordwell “the art film tends to deal with real contemporary problems such as ‘alienation’ or ‘lack of communication’” (Cook, (1999), p108). The themes of The Beach also address contemporary issues; culture, the notion of paradise and its cost, and our notion of adventure and self. The Beach looks at what Bordwell considers ‘art cinema’ issues with a Hollywood eye; transporting the issues usually associated with ‘high brow’ art cinema and pushing them into a more public domain. The issues of culture are dealt with at the beginning during the market scenes and while Richard is in the hotel. The notion of paradise at a cost is only shown after we have returned to the mainland on a rice run. If tourism finds it way to the island the culture of the inhabitants will be lost, much like in Thailand itself, because of the mass influx of tourism, the traditions and cultural aspects of Thailand have been pushed into the back allies, behind closed doors. The idea of paradise at a cost affects Richard the most, he must stay and guard the island from the surfers and in doing so distances himself from the inhabitants and Francoise; in keeping it a secret he misses out on paradise and loses Francoise. The notion of self is also explored, like in traditional art cinema the main character doesn’t have any goals or aims at the start of his ‘adventure’; just the desire to explore, Richard himself says: “I just feel like everyone tries to do something different, but you always wind up doing the same damn thing.” This leads him, Etienne and Francoise to the island in the first place. Richard also becomes more like Daffy in his segregation from the other inhabitants, having hallucinations and dreams involving shooting the islanders and surfers, and pretending to be a ‘Rambo-esque’ figure in the jungle, watching the farmers. The deterioration of Richard’s sense of self could also be considered part of the loss of paradise, after experiencing the beach, being away from it has driven Richard insane.

While Richard is away from the community we enter his ’jungle world’, a world without any of the responsibilities or problems he experienced in the community or back in the ‘real’ world. The jungle around his former home has become his playground. We see him pretend childishly that he has a gun – which is really a twig – and he is stalking the farmers, we also see him imagine that he is the main character of a computer game. These day dreams and games are all born from the idea of pleasure through screens; the references to Rambo (First Blood), (Kotcheff, 1982), Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1972), The Deer Hunter (Cimino, 1978) and the motion with the pretend gun are all born out a technological culture. The references to Rambo, Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter are all easily recognisable Apocalypse Now being shown during the film, and several audio snippets being used near the climax of the film. The game day dream is also born out a screen obsessed culture; this is shown throughout the film. A lot of the island’s inhabitants are seen playing game boys and there is a mural on the screen of the world made up of a series of rectangles that could be screens. The idea of pleasure through screens in the film is used frequently, commenting on our place in the world; we no longer receive entertainment through nature or each other, and have to concentrate on a piece of plastic or glass for entertainment or information. The surfers on the opposite island are seen through binoculars, and the photo taken on the island is a screen of a happier time, it is then seen through another screen by Richard at the end of the film.
While in the jungle Richard becomes a microcosm of the beach, he becomes selfish, not helping the community and playing his own make believe games. He also believes he is superior to the rest of the island, much like the beach’s inhabitants suppose they are superior to the rest of the travelling community, although Richard’s self belief of superiority extends to the farmers who let the islanders live on the island. He watches the farmers and steals things from their hut while they are asleep. This idea of a game could be an issue of identity, without the other villages or rules Richard becomes selfish, the island community is cut off from the world, and Richard is cut of from the island community, meaning he has lost his place in the community, and therefore in the world, the ideas of being Rambo or an active participant in the Vietnam war could be from his previous culture’s obsession with screens. One could also say that Richard is becoming part of the island, protecting it from the American Surfers (he calls them the ‘invaders’), in one scene Richard appears to sprout from a large patch of leaves in the island, he also gains sustenance from the island in the scene, eating a caterpillar off one of the leaves.

The film uses montage sequences to convey information quickly like many Hollywood films. All of the travelling to the island is shown in a montage sequence with Richard narrating over the images we see on screen. When we arrive at the island we are shown a longer montage introducing us to the island and its inhabitants along with their likes and dislikes. The montage sequence is a common Hollywood element that allows us to experience meetings or travel great distances in a relatively short space of time, rather than taking a long time over travelling and arbitrary meetings that add nothing to the narrative and are of no consequence to the plot, which helps to avoid plot holes and ambiguous scenes that may only confuse an audience. The use of a montage also helps to speed up the action, where as in real life time passes second by second, hour by hour, by using a montage in The Beach we can be transported weeks after Richard, Francoise and Etienne have settled into life on the island.
Although this is a common trait among Hollywood narrative structure, it also highlights a key element in Art cinema, the lack of a time scale. Thompson notes that the protagonist in many art cinema films are under little obligation to achieve their goals in a set amount of time ((1999), p14), in The Beach, Richard is under no time-scale at all. The only thing he waits for in the entire film is for the surfers to cross the sea between the two islands, which he has no control over at all, as Thompson says “…characters often act because they are forced to, not because they want to”. ((1999) p16), throughout the film, Richard never acts without being forced to, the only thing that is totally his decision is to make a copy of the map, which results in death and the islanders having to leave their home.

The Beach uses many ‘Hollywood techniques’; montage sequences, star billing, steadi-cam and computer generated effects to name a few. It also employs some characteristics of ‘Art Cinema’; the voice over throughout the film highlights the characters similarities to art cinema’s characters, the vague ending, and the lack of a ‘cause and effect’ narrative structure.

Soviet Montage Cinema

Analyse and discuss Dovzhenko’s Earth in terms of its similarities and differences with other soviet films of the period.

The Soviet Montage film movement began in the 1920’s 1 and carried on towards the beginning of the 1930’s. In this essay I will be looking at the films of Soviet Directors from the 1925 – 1930 period, I will be studying Dovzheko’s Earth (1930), and looking at the similarities and differences in the following films Eisenstein’s Strike (1925) and The Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Pudovkin’s Storm Over Asia (1929).
Strike was released in early 1925 and was one of the first major films of the “Soviet Montage” movement 2. It concerns the strike of factory workers and its conclusion. Like many of Eisenstein’s films it has heavily politicised ideologies and themes. Much like Battleship Potemkin, which focuses on the struggle of a Russian Battleship crew as they mutiny after against their Tsarist rulers. Both Strike and Battleship Potemkin are based on true events; in 1905 a Russian crew did mutiny, and Strike “is a discourse on all the Russian strikes that occurred before 1917” 3. Both films start with a political quote from Lenin. Strike Over Asia is the story of a fictional ancestor of Genghis Kahn, discovered and put into power by the British to control Mongolia with a puppet regime, the film deals with exploitation and the revolution of Mongolia and the partisans.
Earth is the story of how collectivisation affects the people living in a village. It deals with the subjects of collectivisation, communism, family, community, faith and life and death.
Although collectivisation did happen, the family and village portrayed in the film are entirely fictional. Unlike Strike, Storm Over Asia and Battleship Potemkin, Earth uses more characterisation to portray the collectivisation of the wheat fields. In Earth we are introduced to Opana’s family in the opening sequence and each of the main characters are identified as the film progresses, in other montage films, like Strike and Battleship Potemkin, the social forces drive the story forward, not the characters; the main character in Battleship Potemkin, Vakulynchuk, is killed off, and we only identify with the characters through social movements. Indeed in Strike, the only people we know the names of end up working for the oppressors or committing suicide. This motif throughout Eisenstein’s films has been referred to as “heroic realism” 4. Identifying with the social forces rather than the individuals who take part in any action.
In Storm Over Asia, we identify with the social movements, rather than the people progressing the narrative. The main character is known as “Mongol Hunter”, and no one else is identified personally.
In Earth, the Trubenko family take part in the social upheaval of collectivisation; Vasyl takes charge of the Komsomols when they organize the tractor collection, and they hold a meeting in his father’s house. When Vasyl is murdered, his father, Opanas, forces the collectivisation.

“…it’s three main characters – Vasyl Trubenko, Opanas Trubenko and Khoma Bilokin – who represent, respectively, the Komosomol activists in the village, the confused middle peasants and the evil Kulaks…”
(Liber, (2002), p107)

Of course the characterisation in Earth does not take away from the political message about collectivisation; neither does the lack of characterisation in Strike or Battleship Potemkin detract from the political message behind the film, starting and ending the film with a quote from Lenin. The quotes at the beginning and end of Strike bookend the film, reminding the audience that the film is based on true events, and further politicizing the film.
Storm Over Asia is not as obviously politicised as Strike and Battleship Potemkin, much like Earth, this could be because of the fictional story that unfolds before us. The lack of characterisation in a mostly character led story makes it hard to distinguish the director’s motive for setting a tale of revolution in Mongolia. Although, the shots of the military commanders do add to the argument of typage in ‘soviet montage’ films; the generals are all very well looked after and shot in intimidating ways, whereas their underlings live in poor conditions when compared to their commanders, eating, sleeping, working and playing in the same room.

Earth opens with shots of fields of wheat blowing in the wind; it then cuts to a shot of a girl standing next to a sunflower. The next sequence of shots deal with the death of Semen; the grandfather of the main protagonist’s family. Whereas in Strike, the film opens onto a shot of the factory owner, a large bureaucratic man in a top hat and suit. Eisenstein used ‘typage’ to convey social structures and classes in his films. In Strike the rich, upper classes are seen in grand surroundings, drinking and smoking cigars, or ordering about the factory workers:

”The workers, by contrast, are idealized in a manner typical of “heroic realism”, with none of the bourgeois forces exaggeration of costume or demeanour. Moreover, they are far less individualized. The film’s opening depersonalizes the agitators…”
(Bordwell, (2004), p379).

The workers are rarely seen in grand surroundings, living in relative squalor with their families, struggling for food and tobacco as “The Strike Drags On”. The realism of their struggle is at odds with the oppressors almost comical appearance; when pushed into a pool of dirty water the first reaction of one of the factory owners is to comb his hair and straighten his suit.
The oppressors in Potemkin are far more severe and serious, the first time we see the ships admiral he orders the shooting of strikers, covering them in a tarpaulin, the police guard in the Odessa Staircase sequence are also shot in a very intimidating manner, at the end of the Odessa Staircase scene a woman approaches the guard, whose shadows engulf her and her injured infant. The main agitators in Storm Over Asia are the British army, its leaders are shown as being very officious and menacing, especially the General, who at one point in the film appears surrounded by smoke, further emphasising his evil intentions. The idea of ‘typage’ was a “gesture towards realism”; many of the characters were cast because of the way they looked, rather than any acting skill 5.
The opening of Earth could not be more different than Strike or Battleship Potemkin, we see Opana’s and Vasyl’s family in an apple orchard; Semen, the grandfather, is surrounded by the over-ripe apples that have fallen from the trees surrounding his family, the over ripe apples symbolise the notion of death along with Semen, who is surrounded by them 6. In Earth, Dovzhenko frequently uses people, food (in this case, apples), animals and nature to symbolise death and rebirth, the opening shot of the girl next standing next to a sunflower symbolises the idea that the villagers are one with the nature surrounding them; they work with the soil and gain from the harvest 7, even in death the villagers are in harmony with nature, the over-ripe apples will decay and become fertilizer for new plants and life, and will be renewed, much like Semen and his family.
The whole of Semen’s family surrounds him in his final moments; he will leave behind children and grand children to carry on with the work, the young children by Semen’s side could also be considered as his replacement, another notion of rebirth or renewal.
The apples and fruit in general are used as a signs of fertility, when Semen receives an apple from his grand daughter, she clutches the bowl in a similar fashion to the way Opana’s wife holds her pregnant stomach 8, and throughout the film we also see young children eating fruit, further establishing the idea of rebirth and renewal.
The motif of rebirth and renewal carries on throughout the film, when Vasyl’s funeral is taking place; Opana’s wife goes into labour. The idea of renewal can also be seen in the arrival of the tractor and the harvest, with Semen gone, the tractor replaces him and speeds up the harvest process, although the actual growing of the harvest seems to be omitted from the film, which according to Kepley 9; takes away nature’s role in the harvest, only to be supplanted by new technology and labour until the moment Vasyl dies, where the plants brush against his face and we see shots of sunflowers and apples again.
When Semen dies, there is a shot of his son; Opanas, and grandson; Vasyl looking down at him, as well as a sunflower which appears to “look down” on Semen, further establishing the harmony between the villagers and nature, and the renewal each family member brings. There are elements of renewal in Strike and Battleship Potemkin, when Vakulynchuk is killed and Yakov Strongen kills himself in Strike, their deaths give birth to the revolution, in death they become the figureheads and inspiration against their Tsarist oppressors.
The are no elements of renewal as such in Storm Over Asia, but a natural element does appear at the very end of the film, when the main character charges the British army. The wind appears to join in the attack, literally blowing the British out of Asia.

In Earth, machines are given human or natural characteristics, when the tractor arrives at the village; it breaks down because its radiator is empty. The tractor is made part of the village when the Komsomols urinate into its radiator, giving in a natural element, even though it is made from metal. The first long shot of the tractor hides its progress along the road, when we finally see the tractor it seems to spurt from the ground like a plant, further emphasising the role nature plays in these villagers’ lives.
In Strike the main force behind the workers lives is not nature, but the factory their lives revolve around. The factory binds the workers together in their struggle against the corrupt factory owners. In Battleship Potemkin, the actual ship seems to be the main force of the sailors lives; it is where they live, eat and sleep, and it is the force that carries them forward and unites them, this is shown when the smaller ships join Potemkin in the harbour, the people from Odessa have joined the revolution against their oppressors.
The oppressing force in Earth are the Kulaks, they are against the collectivization of the fields because it means they will have to share their wealth with the rest of the village, they cannot join in the new social arrangements made by the collectivization 10, the Kulaks do not want to share anything with the rest of the town, the Khoma’s father going so far as to try and kill the families horse instead of share with the rest of the village 11. After Khoma has killed Vasyl and realises that the Kulaks are becoming extinct, he tries to be “reborn” by dancing; placing his head on the ground, and trying to screw himself back into the earth.
The Kulaks inability to unite with the rest of the village is shown throughout the film, in the scene where the tractor arrives in the village, there are shots of three cattle, standing watching the tractor up the path, cut into the same shot, but with three Kulaks instead of the cattle, a direct reference to the place the Kulak are headed. With the aid of the tractor, the cattle will no longer be needed to pull the plough, much like the use of the Kulaks once collectivisation has taken place 12. This technique is quite similar to the end of Strike, when the massacre of the strikers is taking place. Instead of showing the actual massacre of the strikers in person, Eisenstein chooses to show us a bull being slaughtered as a metaphor.

“The last reel (of Strike) is virtually a detachable short film, a showcase of Eisenstein’s “free montage of attractions” that, operating independently of narrative, stimulate strong emotions and wide ranging concepts.”
(Bordwell, (2004), p378)

Religion is also prominent in Earth, the arrival of the tractor is much like the biblical descriptions of Palm Sunday, the eventual martyr riding the village’s saviour 13. The large groups gathered at the end of the film are also reminiscent of gatherings depicted in the bible, when Jesus was lecturing his followers. A more graphic example are the crosses in the background as Khoma confesses to killing Vasyl.
Strike Over Asia compares the preparations of the religions of Asia for meeting with the British army. Conducts of dress and appearance are concentrated on for both parties. The monks preparing their ceremonial dress, and the general’s wife preparing her make up.

Strike, Battleship Potemkin, Storm Over Asia and Earth all contain different and similar elements, each of the films is politically motivated. Strike, Storm Over Asia and Battleship Potemkin all deal with the idea of revolution, so some of the same techniques are used to portray the struggling revolutionaries and the oppressors is different ideological ways, using camera angles and ‘typage’ to make the oppressors more intimidating and the revolutionaries more heroic. Earth does not employ these techniques as much as the other films I have looked at, preferring to tell the story through the characters, rather than the social situation.


References

1. Bordwell, 2003, p119
2. Bordwell, 2003, p127
3. Bordwell 1985, p235
4. Bordwell, 2004, p368
5. Bordwell, 2003, p138
6. Kepley, 1986, p 79
7. Liber, 2002, p108
8. Kepley, 1986, p79
9. Kepley, 1986, p83
10. Liber, 2002, p110
11. Kepley, 1986, p82
12. Kepley, 1986, p82
13. Liber, 2002, p110


Bibliography

Bordwell, D (1985) Narration in the Fiction Film, Wisconsin; University Of Wisconsin Press.

Bordwell, D and Carroll N (1986) Post Theory, University of Wisconsin Press.

Bordwell, D and Thompson, K (2003) Film History: An Introduction (Second Edition), University of Wisconsin, McGrawHill

Bordwell, D and Thompson, K (2004) Film Art: An Introduction (Seventh Edition); University of Wisconsin, McGrawHill

Christie, I (1993) Eisenstein rediscovered/edited by Ian Christie and Richard Taylor. p. cm.—(Soviet cinema) Papers from a conference held at Keble College, Oxford, July 1988. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Eisenstein, Sergei, 1898–1948–Criticism and interpretation Congresses. I. Christie, Ian. II. Taylor, Richard. Accessed on 9th November: http://www.shu.eblib.com/EBLWeb/patron/

Kepley, V (1986) In the Service of the State: the Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko, Wisconsin University Press. (Chapter 6 Earth)

Liber, G. O (2002) Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet Film, BFI Publishing; London

Taylor, R (2006) The Eisenstein Collection: SERGEI EISENSTEIN, London; Seagull Books

Zombie Zombie Zombie

This is a piece of work I did for a 'journal paper' at Uni, it's meant to be about genre changing over time, and how it affects the zombie film genre, I might put up some more work later, I did a really pretentious essay on Soviet Montage films, but it has a few more references.

Genre Changes and the Zombie Film

Genre changes over time, it shifts the elements that construct its narrative to make something original or it adds elements from other genres to mix the conventions the audience are used to and create new meaning, surprises and ideas.

I looked into the changes and shifts in genre that affect the zombie film genre, and how it affected the meaning of the films and where the genres took the narratives.
I tried to define the main characteristics of zombie movies that appear throughout the genre in each film. Tudor makes the point (using westerns) that: “…we must first isolate the body of films that are ‘westerns’. But they can only be isolated on the basis of the ‘principal characteristics’…”

I tried the find and define the principal characteristics of the zombie film, so mapping the genre changes and shifts would be more precise. The first and most obvious characteristic of the zombie film genre is Zombies. The Zombie is the main aspect of the genre, there are several types of zombie which I have identified from the films that I have seen and I will explain them in more detail later, I have identified several, the voodoo zombie, the undead zombie and the science zombie.

The fear of the undead is present in many different forms of fiction; stories, novels and poems all reference the dead or undead coming back from the grave to haunt the living.

”The original zombies came from witchcraft and magic, voodoo and rituals” (London, (1976) p.76) Films like Plague of the Zombies (Gilling 1966), White Zombie (Halperin, 1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (Torneur, 1943) used voodoo as the creation behind the zombie force. The Zombies were usually controlled by a voodoo priest and performed manual tasks for him, for instance in Plague of the Zombies, the zombies are used to mine tin for the “tyrannical Victorian mine owner” (London (1976) p.88).

The next incarnation of the zombie was the undead zombie. Made popular by George A. Romero’s ‘Dead’ Series, the undead zombie set the standard for the future zombies seen in television and cinema. Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968) was in the first in a series of five films, with more being made to this very day. These zombies were not controlled by anyone, and their only desire was to feed on living humans, adding to their own number.

After the undead zombie, the need for a more explained creation story was needed; the science zombie used scientific accidents and mistakes to explain the concept of the undead rising. This idea could be attributed to the progression of medical and experimental science in our modern age; transplant procedures and the freezing of dead bodies to be resuscitated when death and disease are not a problem seem common place today. Films like Resident Evil (Anderson, 2002), 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002) and 28 Weeks Later (Fresendillo, 2007) all use a science aspect to explain the origin of the zombies, for instance in Resident Evil the zombies are the mistake resulting from a chemical weapons leak in an underground bunker.

The post apocalyptic society features heavily in the zombie genre; the science and undead zombie appear almost exclusively in the destroyed world as the dominant species, while human survivors struggle by. The idea of life being wiped out by an infectious outbreak was taken from Richard Matheson’s Book I am Legend (1954), which was originally a story of a vampire outbreak infecting the inhabitants of a city. More modern zombie films like 28 Days Later cite Day of the Triffids (1951) as an influence on the post apocalyptic vision of the future. Another common characteristic in zombie films is the group of survivors; each Romero film has a group of survivors struggling by against the zombie hordes, until they become complacent and kill each other off or let in the zombies, usually because of their own inadequacies and differences, rather than the zombies out witting them.

”…the zombie walks amongst us in many disguises, and he represents many of our fears.” (London (1976) p98).

Since the earliest incarnations of the Zombie film, the abilities and the causes of the undead rising from the grave have been different.
The voodoo zombies of the early films were not seen cannibalising other humans until the Romero dead series of the early 1960’s. Zombies then changed from being under the control of a voodoo priest and having an origin to being under no control and having no explanation of their origin at all. One could say that with the lack of an origin to the zombie, the films just became about gore; many of the substandard zombie b-movies that came following Night of the Living Dead’s success blatantly played on the ‘gore’ factor to attract an audience.
The gore factor has been carried through many of the incarnations of the zombie genre, many of the audience just came to see gore; the recent Grindhouse: Planet Terror (Rodriguez, 2007) used gore excessively to make up for an extremely poor story line, and the remakes of Dawn Of The Dead (Snyder) in 2004 and Day Of The Dead (Miner) in 2008 used gore a lot more than their predecessor, possibly for a modern desensitised audience, who care less about the narrative of the point it tries to make and more about the way to dispatch the monster, and the effect it has on the decorating.

One aspect between the science and undead zombie films that remains different are the zombies origins; were as the science zombie’s origins are usually explained at the beginning or in the climax of the film, the undead (particularly Romero) zombie’s origins are unexplained or just hinted at, leaving it up to the audience to decide where the monsters come from.
The science zombie is usually the result of a mistake that contaminates the whole world due to science failing, or a military weapon backfiring against its creators, where as the undead zombie contaminates the whole world, leaving figures of authority like scientists, police and army offices and elected leaders redundant and confused. Both types of zombie film comment on authority figures and their ability to deal with mass hysteria, whether it is from zombie hordes or rampaging citizens.

The zombie has been through some changes since its first incarnation in horror novels and stories. For example, Frankenstein’s monster was one of the first zombies, on screen and in literature, although he didn’t eat any living people.
The first film zombies were originally workers for a voodoo priest. A recently deceased person could be brought back from the dead by voodoo to do the priest’s bidding, usually some form of manual labour.
From Voodoo, the zombie adapted into the most recognizable form of the zombie we know today, the undead zombie. The change from Voodoo zombie to undead zombie could be attributed to the lack of religion in our modern society, or the way we view other culture’s religions. The tag line for Dawn of the Dead was “When there is no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the earth”, implying a Christian or Catholic view on the origin of the zombies without any proof. The voodoo origins of the original zombie would have been too far fetched for a modern audience.

The first undead zombie movie was Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which was followed by the rest of the series as well as many other films which used the undead zombie as the main antagonist. There have been many variations on the undead zombie; some adaptations of the zombie have been comical, such as the films Return of the Living Dead (O’Bannon, 1985) and Peter Jackson’s Braindead (1992). Films like Shaun of the Dead (Wright, 2004) have taken a comical look at the zombie genre, but kept the zombies true to the Romero standards, poking fun at the concepts used in zombie films, rather than the zombies themselves. This could be to either revive the conventions of the zombie genre or to highlight the inadequacies of the zombie as a menace to the world; by the end of the film we are watching the zombies entertain us in stupid game shows.

Most recently zombies have adapted again into the fast moving modern zombies, probably because of the worn out conventions of the Romero-style zombie film. The modern versions share little in common with each other, apart from the fact that they are zombies.
In some instances, the zombies are faster and stronger than they’re counterparts, in the remake of Dawn of the Dead and the E4 series Dead Set (Demange, 2008), the zombies can sprint and appear more agile and stronger than their previous counterparts, again highlighting the differences and weaknesses of the Romero-style zombie and the difference of the faster modern zombies.
The adaptation of the Romero-style zombie started with 28 Days Later, although the infected are not strictly zombies, they follow the same design as some of the zombies that came before the film. In the film they are infected with ‘rage’ and they can infect others by spitting blood and by scratching or biting. They are also large in number, and choose not to attack the infected. One of the main differences to the previous zombies is the speed at which the infected from 28 Days Later move, they sprint and jump to try and attack the uninfected. The infected in 28 Days Later don’t eat the living either, the infection being carried through bodily fluids, as Christopher Ecclestone’s character Major West keeps an infected soldier tied up to see how long it will take for the infected to die from starvation.
Other modern zombie films and series include the remakes of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. The zombies in Dawn of the Dead are much like the infected of 28 Days Later, although they eat people and are physically rotting. In Day of the Dead the zombies have gained abilities that they did not have in life let alone death, they can climb walls and jump great distances.
The E4 series Dead Set takes a zombie outbreak and sets it in the big brother household, with the housemates unaware of the zombie nation surrounding them. In this adaptation the zombies have the same abilities as the zombies in the remake of Dawn of the Dead.
The conventions of the undead/Romero-style zombie have grown old, and warrant a change to shock and scare the audience. In the fast pace modern society we live in, it makes sense that as the undead we would move just as fast as we did in life to get what we want.

The zombies in the remakes of Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Dead Set offer no explanation to why or how they have been created much like Romero’s Living Dead series. 28 Days Later offers an explanation at the beginning of the film to explain the origins of the infected, much like the ‘science’ zombie films.
The remakes of Romero’s films and Dead Set offer no explanation possibly because of the ideology present in the films subtext, Dawn of the Dead addresses issues about consumerism, Day of the Dead comments on the use of science and man playing god and Dead Set comments on the culture we have before us; reality TV and ‘celebrity culture’. The origin of our societies downfall is entirely of our own doing, rather than blaming a scientist or a voodoo priest the film states that we must point the finger inwards and blame ourselves about what we have created.

Films that use science to explain the origin of zombies became popular from the films 28 Days Later, and the computer game Resident Evil. But the first science zombie film was made in 1936; The Walking Dead (Curtiz), it was the story of a man wrongly executed for murder, who is resuscitated using electricity to claim vengeance on the real killers, only to be killed again after making the scientists responsible for his rebirth promise to never do it again. (London, (1976),p 58). The film of Resident Evil explains the origin of the zombie as a mistake from a chemical weapons factory; the zombies used to be the staff of the evil umbrella corporation of the film and games. The zombies display the same abilities and characteristics of a Romero zombie, except we know how they were created. The film also uses a large monster, called a Licker, which is a prominent ‘baddie’ in the video game. It has nothing to do with the zombie genre, and is the film only to remind the audience of the films adaptation from a computer game.
The Grindhouse production of Planet Terror also uses science zombies, but to a more comedic effect. The soldiers were infected by a gas and must constantly inhale the antidote or they become zombies.
The science zombie could be a comment on the lack of an origin story for the Romero/Undead zombie, the science zombie has a back story and origin, so it is probable that the antagonists of the film can be killed in a scientific way, giving the audience closure on the horrific nature of the film, where as the lack of origin for the undead/Romero zombie takes away the closure aspect that the audience wants by the end of the film, most of the endings of Romero films are left ambiguously, letting the audience decide the survivor’s fate.


To further explore the idea of genre changing I would investigate the other adaptations of ‘the monster’. For instance, Vampires and the changes from the first vampire films like Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922) and Dracula (Browning, 1932), to the modern versions like Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008) and Interview with a Vampire (Jordan, 1994). This could also lead into mummies and serial killers like in the Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980) series or the Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) series. Eventually an overview of the horror genre could be seen, the progression of the main monsters, from classical films like The Wolf Man (Waggner, 1941), and The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, 1935) to more modern adaptations like An American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981) and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (Branagh, 1994).

The limitations of this study could be the genre, although the horror genre is massive and full of many monsters, and sub genres. There is always a common denominator of a monster or bad guy, in sequels and adaptations, in other genres such as action or comedy, there wouldn’t be such a common denominator.

It would also take a lot of viewings to identify the aspects of the monster that appeared in each adaptation or sub genre, which would link them all together.

To start I would map the different types of genres from each ‘monster’, e.g. Vampire, Zombie, Werewolf etc, to get a better idea of the spread of films.

During my investigation I found that the Zombie genre has been constantly changing, much like the idea of genre itself. The zombie genre has borrowed ideas from previous films, series and video games to keep itself original and refreshing. From the original Voodoo Zombies of the 1930’s to the Science zombie of 2000, the zombie genre has been constantly changing, using different origin stories and abilities of zombies to change the genre into different sub genres.


Bibliography
Annan, D (1974) Cinefantastic: Beyond the Dream Machine: London, Lorrimer Publishing
Cook, P and Bernink, M (eds) (1999) The Cinema Book (2^nd Edition), London; BFI
Gange P, (1987) The Zombies that Ate Pittsburgh: The Films of George A. Romero; New York, Dodd, Mead & Company
Jones, A (2005) The Rough Guide to Horror Movies, London; Penguin Books Ltd.
London, R ( 1976) Zombie: The Living Dead; London, Lorrimer Publishing
Lothe J, (2000) Narrative In Fiction and Film, Oxford; Oxford University Press
Marriot, J (2004) Horror Films, London; Virgin Books
Sage, V and Smith, A L (eds.) (1996) Modern Gothic: A Reader; Manchester, Manchester University Press
Tudor, A (1989) Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie; Oxford, Basil Blackwell Ltd.