Reconstruction [Romania 1968]

Reconstituirea
Director: L. Pintilie
Cinematographer: S. Huzum

A very thinly veiled piece of powerful social criticism, this film seems to be a metaphor for socialist Romania as a sort of theatrical production, mirroring comments made by some Romanians in Ben Lewis's documentary, in which one of them claims that all Romanians were actors, putting on a performance for Ceauşescu. Formally speaking, this film is among the best of the 1960s films.

The 'reconstruction' in question is a reconstruction of a fight between young people, made for an educational film to teach people not to abuse alcohol. Like Camera Buff, this film therefore makes use of the device of putting film-making self-consciously at the centre of the film itself. The opening shots are through the eyes of the film-maker, and the film also takes several humorous digs at film-makers, treating them as prima donnas, etc.

But there is more to the camera idea than just this; primarily it seems to serve as a metaphor for the Romanian people putting on a show, a performance, in which they are made to alter the past to fit with what is supposed to be true. Thus, while actually those involved in the original fight now completely forgive each other, they are made to stand and hit each other, even if softly; the film-maker repeatedly says 'Hit him, hit him', while one of the boys cannot bring himself to hit his friend, although his idiotic friend is happy to participate enthusiastically. And although they are at first told to reconstruct what originally happened, it rapidly becomes clear that they are also to alter things, and to fight more than they did in reality.

One way of reading this metaphor is that it reflects the portrayal of class struggle in pre-socialist Romania, and therefore suggests that Romanians were turned against each other by the leadership, when their real conflicts were quite different and could have been resolved in another way. Also, because this is done for an educational film, this could suggest that this is the way in which capitalism is being falsely portrayed to people.

The idea that Romanians are turned against each other is reinforced by the climax of the film, at the end, where we see masses of Romanians essentially turned into violent animals. In the absence of the leadership, which manages to pull them together in a mass effort to benefit the leaders (symbolically, pushing the chief prosecutor's car out of a mud puddle), the people degenerate into totally pointless violence against each other. The point seems to be that a façade of co-operation has been created, behind which lies a society of people who have been turned into subhuman, violent creatures.

Moreover, the idea of the people having been conned into a false dream is reinforced by the fact that the two boys have to make the film as a 'better alternative' to being put in prison, but that actually making the film itself becomes torture. The intellectual who is the voice of conscience in the film thus cries out that they are being treated in an inhuman way, and that there mere fact of not putting them in prison does not justify this kind of treatment. In other words, this could easily be read as a criticism of the way in which dissent may have been met with claims that, while things might be difficult, they would be even more difficult under capitalism. There is a sense that the leadership here have saved the boys from one bad fate only to hold it over their heads and use it to torture them.

The symbolism of the leadership and social structure is interesting. It is very tempting to view the chief prosecutor as representing Ceauşescu. He is the one orchestrating the performance, though he does none of it personally; he spends most of the film sunning himself by the lake, and at the end as he rides away in his car he tellingly waves like a leader to crowds of people, who wave back to him. This seems so thinly veiled as to be almost absurd. Meanwhile, the whole business of the reconstruction is managed by his agent, a military man, who may have somewhat old fashioned ways of motivating the two boys, but in the end sympathises with them and shares cigarettes with them. He seems to do what he does out of a sense of duty, even if he may disagree with it; as when he goes off on a literal 'goose chase', even if grumbling. This would seem to represent many of those who obeyed the leadership dutifully, perhaps out of a sense of not being qualified to question things.

Finally there is the intellectual, who is there for no obvious reason, but spends the film decrying the cruelty of the whole affair, and turns out to be an alcoholic. Then, after drinking, he finally bursts, and actually makes the political metaphor completely explicit. He complains once more about the injustice of the whole thing, and is accused of being drunk; to which he responds that whenever people criticise, they are just accused of being drunk, or having an uncle in Mexico, or whatever. This is of course utterly telling. If that were not enough, he steps out of the film for a moment by saying something like 'And do you wonder why they chose a beach hut for this? A place where people go to take their rest after 8 hours work, and they sabotage it?', which seems to be a statement on the film itself. In other words there seems to be a further point here about the holiday setting of the film; even in the place where people get their respite from work, they have to put on a performance and are unable to be free from hypocritical demands.

This holiday setting forms an interesting parallel with the film Knife in the Water, which also takes place on a body of water, and also involves a strong criticism of the bureaucracy. In both films, there is also a situation of generational conflict; clearly, the young are the powerless, while the old hold all the power. In both, there is a beautiful young woman wearing a bikini who tantalises the young throughout the film, though they are kept away by the situation created by the old. And in both, there is a somewhat awkward young person who for a while willingly goes along with the demands of the older.

The theme of sexual tension is reinforced by the girl repeatedly appearing to giggle at the circus being put on by the men, though eventually she is brought to tears when they start to really hurt each other. She seems to represent a kind of purity and innocence to which the boys cannot have access because they are imprisoned by their situation. There is a parallel with WR: Mysteries of the Organism here, as her sexuality draws one of the boys, but although he cannot restrain his urge to kiss her at one point, he does not want anything more to do with her after that. He seems absorbed by the violence through which he is being put, and therefore sexually stunted, somehow cut off from what might be seen as teenage normalcy. Thus the presence of the girl reinforces the injustice of the situation.

There is also the theme of generational conflict here. Throughout, the boys would rather be doing something else; in particular, the idiotic one thinks about football, about climbing a mountain, etc. This serves to strengthen the feeling that their priorities are quite different from the older generation, which seems to be arbitrarily imposing its own aims on them. In that way, this film fits into the tradition of films of generational conflict of the 1960s, like Born in '45 and Black Peter. It seems here that the alignment between generations and politics is slightly less powerful; the older generation are also victimised somewhat by other members of the older generation. But there is definitely a sense that the young in particular, partly because of their particularly powerless situation, are being made to acquiesce in something contrary to their nature.

Formally speaking, the film makes use of a few interesting techniques. One is its use of irritating sound effects; all the characters arrive to the sound of an incessant car horn, which goes on for far longer than one might expect, and only turns off in the middle of a shot in which the girl is swimming beautifully along in the lake. This serves to introduce the arrival of a ridiculous, cacophonous and in the end ugly social situation in to what is up until then a summer holiday idyll. There are other interesting uses of sound; we never really get music, except in little pieces from a radio, which are in some cases interrupted by people (e.g. the chief prosecutor) complaining about it. The sound never allows us to completely settle in; instead it jars us from any feeling of comfort and keeps us alert, while also creating a sense of realism.

This realism is not a simple one. For the visual realism of the film fades in and out. In the introductory shots, the film feels slightly surreal; then it introduces enough realism to lure the viewer into some comfort with the film, but every so often it reintroduces an incongruent shot which unsettles things. An example is the way in which an impossible number of people pile out of the car that arrives at the lake, or the way in which the intellectual steps out of role for one line to comment on the film itself. More powerfully, at the end of the film masses of Romanians show up out of nowhere to walk along the lake, which does not feel jarring at all, because by that time the metaphor has become so clear that it makes sense.

Another small point to make about the formalism is that at least on the surface, there are some shared symbols with Closely Observed Trains. In both, we see an old woman stroking the neck of a goose; we see a boy chasing a girl leaving on a train; we see a car arriving full of officials from far away. These could all be coincidences of visual similarity, but certainly both films say something about sexual discovery and youth, though in this film the point seems to be that they are being sidelined or forgotten because of the situation in which the young are stuck.

So, this film seems to be extremely critical of Romanian socialism, and particularly of the situation of the younger generation. This seems curious for several reasons. One is that according to some, the popularity of the Ceauşescu government, which was only 3 years old at the time this film was made, was rather high at the time; there was no issue of Romania's complicity in e.g. the events in Czechoslovakia of 1968, as the government had condemned them. If this film is to be believed, there certainly must have been elements of Romanian youth, including Pintilie himself, who were deeply dissatisfied. A second curious point is that the film does not appear to have been shelved, although according to the BFI guide, Pintilie promptly left the country after it was made to work elsewhere. Of course, the late 1960s were by some accounts a period of opening up in Romania following the 9th Party Congress in 1965. This film may testify to the genuine liberalisation associated with that period. And, as e.g. glasnost, or the Chinese rectification campaign of 1957, demonstrate, periods of opening up to criticism do not necessarily make that criticism any less vehement or venomous. This is a piece of seriously critical film, which could be taken as criticising the leadership, the bureaucracy, the press, or even the existence of socialism itself. Given the events in Romania beginning in the early 1970s, it makes some sense that someone like Pintilie would have left.

This film can be taken as part of several critical traditions within socialist film-making. It is part of the 1960s tradition of post-war generational conflict over values; it is part of criticism about treatment of the youth and sexuality; it is part of criticism about the manipulation of the truth, as in Camera Buff. But it is possibly also part of the tradition of rather extremely anti-socialist films, like the Bulgarian film 'Margarit and Margarita'. It fits within the flowering of formal methods of the 1960s, and while this very sophistication serves to perhaps make the criticism more subtle, in the end this film is a very blunt instrument of political criticism.

Tsogt Taij [Mongolia 1945]

Цогт тайж
Director: T. Khurlee
Cinematographers: D. Jigjid, B. Demberel

This film revolves around Choghtu Khong Tayiji, a 17th century Mongolian prince who waged a campaign against Tibetan forces. Much like Michael the Brave, the film depicts a mediaeval hero fighting against foreign invaders, with a nationalist vision, in this case the vision of a 'united and sovereign' Mongolia. Both in theme and stylistically, it also shares some characteristics with Alexander Nevsky, but it has a distinctive feeling which sets it apart from these films.

One of the main points of the film seems to be its message against Tibetan Buddhism. This was one of the primary belief systems against which anti-religious propaganda was directed in the early decades of Mongolian socialism. The figure of Choghtu Khong Tayiji was undoubtedly chosen for the film because of his fight against the Tibetans. Here, the Tibetan Lamas are portrayed as a cynical invading force, in which supposed pacifistic beliefs of Buddhists are easily cast aside when the occasion demands it. More importantly, Tibetan Buddhism is painted as the diametrical opposite of Mongolian nationalism, because to be patriotic is to resist the Buddhist invasion.

There are several interesting symbols associated with this. One is that the Mongols are spoken of as wearing 'red hats', while the Lamas wear 'yellow hats'; so the war is between the 'red hats' and the 'yellow hats'. This gives rise to such phrases as a Tibetan talking about how he wishes for 'red Mongolia' to be crushed. There seems to be an obvious attempt here to connect these 'red hats' with the red of socialism, and thereby connect the foreign invaders with those invaders who attempted to crush socialism during the war. Moreover, while the swastika is an ancient Buddhist symbol and therefore one must be careful about attributing a Nazi analogy to its use here, there are several conspicuous shots of the swastika as the symbol of the Buddhists, including a prolonged shot of one of them juxtaposed with skulls. A reference is also made to the Mongols having to bow down not just to the Lamas, but to their symbol--i.e. the swastika. So it may not be stretching things too far to suggest that these are intended to associate the foreign invaders with the fascists, particularly given the involvement of Soviet staff (who would themselves have seen swastikas in that way) in Mongolian cinema productions during the early years.

There is also a particularly interesting scene in which the Tibetans are shown ransacking the palace of Choghtu Khong Tayiji. They brutally and maniacally destroy cultural artefacts and in particular, a large quantity of books. Here the symbolism seems crystal clear. The Buddhists are the ones opposed to progress, opposed by implication to science and so on--one of the primary reasons for vilifying religion in some socialist development projects. To side with the Buddhists is to side with ignorance and stagnation, rather than civilisation and progress. It is to assist Mongolia's foreign enemies in keeping her backward.

A further political message seems to be contained in the actions of one Mongol in assisting in this way. That is that the prince's son Arslan betrays Mongolia to the Tibetans because they are able to exploit his weakness for women. There is an implication here about the young selling out Mongolia to foreigners on the basis of their promises of a hedonistic lifestyle etc. Whether this should be read as a political message is not certain, but it seems possible; something along the lines of part of what is said in Berlin - Schönhauser Corner.

While there is clearly a strong political message being sent here, this film is thus not as simplistic as some others of the same period. In particular, while some of the cinematography resembles e.g. Alexander Nevsky, this film does not feel so much like socialist realism. The characters are far too human and multidimensional. They have their weaknesses, which are perhaps oversimplified, but they are weaknesses mixed up with strengths, rather than caricatures. This gives the film a distinctive feeling when compared to some Soviet films of the time.

There is another stylistic peculiarity. That is the general slowness of the film. Dialogue seems very slow, and there are many long, drawn out shots of people and animals moving and slowly doing things. In many films these would have been cut out, and this leads to a significantly longer film than one might expect. It is difficult to speculate about the reasons for this, but it seems possible that this reflects some sort of peculiarity about the nascent Mongolian cinema of the time.

Also reflecting peculiarities is the wide use of what seem like 'typical Mongolian'-type cultural references. That is, we see an important traditional Mongolian festival, with extended portrayal of its rituals and games; we hear a lot of Mongolian music, and so on. Of course, as it is a Mongolian film, one would expect some of this, but because of the extent of it, one gets the feeling that this is deliberately done in order to encourage a sense of Mongolian nationalism, and that this is a specifically nationalist film. It is only speculation, but it seems possible that at the time, given the relative paucity of Mongolian films, it might have also been somewhat thrilling for Mongolians to see their perceived 'national practices' depicted on film. This also helps to emphasise that they are opposed to the 'foreign' practices of Tibetan Buddhism.

Finally another oddity seems to reinforce this point. That is that all of the titles and credits are in classical Mongolian script, although apparently by 1945 the alphabet had already been changed to Cyrillic. The most obvious reason for this would have been to reinforce a sense of Mongolian nationalism. But it is also interesting to note that it must have been expected that people would be able to read the script, in spite of its having been replaced in 1931 by Latin and again in 1941 by Cyrillic. In any case, writing the titles in the classical script seems to be a symbolic gesture.

What does all this nationalism amount to? There are striking parallels with Michael the Brave, and it is difficult not to draw the conclusion that this film, like that one, was partly about building up a sense of nationalism in resistance to foreign interference. Here, the foreign interference is the interference of Japan and pre-revolutionary China, which laid claim to Mongolia. As the film was made around 1944, both of these messages would have been appropriate. A second point is the one already mentioned--to paint Buddhism as a foreign imposition in order to counter it. And a third one is probably just to build up a sense of national unity and patriotism in order to encourage people to feel part of society and contribute to it.

While the film feels a bit rough around the edges sometimes, perhaps because of its early date in Mongolian cinema, it is somewhat stylistically distinctive. Its political agenda seems heavily connected to the politics of the time at which it was made; one could easily read it as a 'propaganda film'. But it also has a more general message of promoting Mongolian nationalism, and this presumably transcends the moment at which it was made. Most importantly, it does not feel like socialist realism, although there is clearly some influence.

Hong Kil Dong [DPRK 1986]

홍길동
Director: K. Kim
Cinematographer: H. Jon

A martial arts film in the style of similar films from Hong Kong, this movie tells the story of Hong Kil Dong, a legendary 15th century Korean Robin Hood figure. It is a mildly entertaining action film with an anti-feudal message.

There are two comments on IMDB about this film which are interesting. One is from a Bulgarian user who says that this film was among the most popular movies in Bulgaria during the 1980s, and that it had more psychological depth than other martial arts movies being shown at the time. Another is from a user from the ex-USSR who says that it was also very popular there, and recalls the blood spraying everywhere and so on. These comments are interesting because they show that there were many young people in socialist countries in the 1980s who found this sort of thing captivating, much as young people did in the West. The latter comment is particularly so because it might hint at part of what was called the 'cult of sex and violence' in the late 1980s in the USSR, i.e. the uptake among youth of images of sex and violence that were increasingly available with glasnost. Yet in this case, this is a film with a clearly Communist message, even if it is delivered with more gratuitous blood and violence than one would normally see in a socialist film.

The Communist message comes through the life of the protagonist. He is the son of an aristocrat and a concubine, and learns martial arts in order to protect his mother from bandits. After being shunned by aristocratic society, he becomes a kind of superhero figure, protecting ordinary people from banditry and also forcing landlords to feed starving peasants. Then, when the country is afflicted by Japanese ninja raiders, he rallies together bands of fighters from around the country to defeat the ninjas. But even so, the king refuses to allow him to marry his aristocratic lover. So, he flees the country with his mother and his lover to try to find a land without the same class distinctions.

Thus, while in some Western films one would have expected the protagonist, having saved the country and vanquished the evildoers, to get the girl and everything else. But because of feudalism, Hong Kil Dong cannot be justly rewarded; instead, he gets nothing but injustice in return for his sacrifice. This does not make his role any less heroic. In fact, it makes it clear that he is all the more honourable, because he selflessly saves his country even though the social system of his country is against him. So there is an obvious hero role that is built up here: he has a strong allegiance to his mother, to the people, to his country, but not to feudalism, and must therefore fight against and escape injustice. While it is therefore similar in its anti-feudal heroic theme to Pulgasari, it is different in not suggesting anything directly about capitalism, and in placing more emphasis on the role of the individual.

As Confucius and Taoism get mentioned in this film, one might wonder about how they are intended to come across, in comparison with e.g. Girls in My Hometown, which seem to condone them somewhat, or Chinese movies like Breaking With Old Ideas, which directly malign them. It seems to be a mix here. Hong Kil Dong is imbued with his power by Taoism, which gives him practically superhuman abilities. Boys are praised as wise for quoting Confucius, which could of course just be a historical reference. But certainly the fixed hierarchy of class divisions and the aristocracy which might be respected by a Confucian come under serious fire. Of course, those who claim that the DPRK is a Confucian society often claim that the old structures have been transplanted onto new individuals, so that there would be no contradiction in condemning the old hierarchy while retaining some of the old ethic. But there is certainly an unmistakeable individualist and revolutionary bent to this film, though Hong Kil Dong stops short of being a revolutionary. It may have more of a classical socialist moral than a Confucian one.

Another aspect is the portrayal of women here. We see that even aristocratic women appear rather helpless and under the control of external circumstances; Hong Kil Dong's lover is an aristocrat, who is just as harmed by class distinctions as he is, because she cannot marry him. Thus, there is perhaps a certain amount of the idea which has been repeated widely, from Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk' to Lucía, that in pre-socialist society female members of the elite were often also oppressed by their position. But the message has to be tempered somewhat when one remembers the rather conservative gender roles espoused in Girls in My Hometown; at least if that movie is to be believed, socialism may have freed women from having to marry within a narrow class, but in the DPRK it has not stopped them following rigid gender roles and asking family permission to marry.

There is not a lot to be said about the style of this film that cannot be said about any other martial arts film. It makes extensive use of highly exaggerated, caricatured and comical shots; fast zooms; highly stylised choreographed fighting, etc. There is a great deal of blood, which seems to be there mainly for the purpose of titillation. Overall it has a kind of cartoon-like feeling and one can see where it might have appealed to young people in the 1980s.