King Lear
USSR, 1971
Directed by Grigori Kozintsev
 |
| Russia, from another movie |
Awesome. Everything attains real magnitude, while
nothing is remotely inflated. Everything
is bold, but there’s not a misstep to be seen.
The setting is monumental, the cinematography is equal to it. The set pieces—the division of property, the
first confrontation with the infidel daughters, the moor, the reconciliation, that appalling
conclusion—are thunderous, but every small thing is exquisitely turned, and in
its own way equal. Performances! Soviet subtext? There are lots of displaced serfs, and the
king’s discovery of his complicity is quite pointed. But it is in the text, isn’t it? You regret the cuts, but not really for
completist or purist reasons. Sure there
are lacunae, but it’s more that every cut means that much less of this
film. Awesome.
The Hand
Czechoslovakia, 1965
Directed by Jiří Trnka
Think,
first, of what you know about this place, at this time in history. That’s what this film is about. But because it’s not only timely, but
timeless (cf. Hugh Nibley, 1978), then there’s also much more to it than just
this particular regime, or that impending tragedy. Trnka’s work functions as pointed parable or as
nightmare, the latter adding dire uncertainty to the former, the former adding
dread practicality or even inevitability to the latter. His Everyman figure looks like a consumptive
Pierrot—it’s Chaplin’s Tramp, whisked forward into a dire, blasted modernity, split
between Kafka and Beckett.
Comparisons
are helpful, and they are apt, but the work itself doesn’t really need them. If you don’t know the specifics, then you’ll
still feel a powerful, more unspecified chill.
The execution of this thing! The
way that eponymous, unrelenting hand slips glancingly in, like sin or the
velvet glove over the iron fist. That
marionette/flight section is a thing of terrible beauty. The conclusion is terrible, terminal. The regime will have its way, or the absurd
cruelty that stands as the only alternative to murderous regimes will have its way.
Then they’ll twist it all around to their ends anyway. I guess Trnka never made another film! What more was there to say?
