Recently, the Library of Congress found and restored a copy of this early Georges Melies short, long believed lost, in which Gugusse beats an automaton clown to death with a hammer.
Tag Archives: Black and White
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: VASE DE NOCES (1974)
AKA Wedding Trough; The Pig F*cking Movie
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DIRECTED BY:Thierry Zéno
FEATURING: Dominique Garny
PLOT: A young farmer embraces his animalistic side as he romances a sow.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Vase de Noces is an under-appreciated classic of surrealist cinema. Not only it is full of extremities but it remains enigmatic, inviting us to ponder on possible interpretations.
COMMENTS: The opening shot, somewhere in between the lyrical and the grotesque, the poetic and the nonsensical, sets the tone accordingly. Our protagonist attempts to dress two pigeons with doll heads, in the first of a series of segments where animals fall prey to his whims. The monstrosity he strives to create recalls a pair of malformed angels, and his perverted, personal view of the angelic. And this layered and disturbing—if purely symbolic—act is just the beginning of our tale.
The film is simple from a narrative standpoint. We follow our protagonist, a young peasant, in a series of extreme and illogical acts. He seems at times a pure, innocent, childlike soul, flying his kite without a care in the world and praying before lunch like a proper Christian. He is also capable of the grossest barbarities, like the infamous act of bestiality mentioned whenever this movie is discussed.
What exactly his nature? Is he a real yet disturbed person, a simpleton, and the film a realistic character study? Or is he purely symbolic, an allegorical personification of the wildest impulses of the human psyche: the id, the beast lurking inside each and every one of us? Probably the latter. Our protagonist is a being of pure emotion, full of contradicting desires, yet always eager to embrace his bestial side.
He seems to find some sort of happiness through bestiality—at first. The female pig gets pregnant and gives birth to three beautiful piglets. It’s almost wholesome. Yet the young man is still unable to find comfort. Unable to help himself, he wreaks havoc through a series of repugnant acts, culminating in a tragic finale. Fully embracing your wild impulses can only bring destruction and self-annihilation, our tale seems to say.
Vase De Noces was Zéno’s feature debut, his second movie after a short documentary portraying schizophrenic artist Georges Moinet. His main interests here are not dissimilar. Zéno once again studies humanity apart from its logical “civilized” aspects, depicting people as amalgamations of impulses, emotions, depravity, and nothing more.
That’s why words—a product of reason—are completely absent from our tale. Instead, we have a rich soundscape full of playful tunes imitating animals’ voices or natural sounds, with classical melodies adding a hint of lyricism. There are also piercing and alarming noises at the most intense moments. The soundscape perfectly aligns with the film’s hypnotic black and white photography.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: TONY ODYSSEY (2025)
Antônio Odisseia
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DIRECTED BY: Thales Banzai
FEATURING: Kelson Succi, Iraci Estrela
PLOT: After robbing his father’s restaurant, Tony runs off with his girl Ivy and they share a “paste”-fueled transdimensional journey.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Tony Odyssey is down-to-Earth dramedy meets high theological physics, with motorcade bunnies, a lusty ur-Mother, and a game show God amongst its otherworldly revelations.
COMMENTS: Tony hates reality. We first find him cleaning an uncooperative toilet in his family’s restaurant, slipping on a damp patch and landing his hands in something best left unmentioned. It’s worth mentioning that this restaurant seems to be nothing but a front for a drug (and firearms?) operation, run by Tony’s cold-hearted father and his one-legged brother. Being down a leg doesn’t stop the would-be Lothario from hitting on Tony’s girl, Ivy, who’s popped by for a visit, snatching a firearm from a motorbike parked out front on her way in. Things then happen quickly: guns drawn, hostage taken, drugs stolen, and Tony and Ivy escape to a not-far-enough-away warehouse to take some of dad’s mind-bending chemicals.
Banzai’s dream blast has energy to spare, and does its best to keep the viewer unmoored. The opening credits spool over a craggy quarry, with a horse-drawn cart slowly making its way up the spiraling ruins of the access road. Sergione-y guitar licks thrum out a jagged, ambiguously Western tune, while the fonts for the credits evoke early ’80s computer text. Space and time are not our enemies—but they are not our friends, either. It is key that Tony manipulate these elements, and with his witchy friend Ivy, he unlocks a door. But where does it lead?
The short answer is: nowhere, and everywhere. The mind-altered pair drop a dark, gluey goo in their eyes, and find themselves in a taxi driven by a man who cannot remember his own name. Tony parts with a necklace of untold wealth to fly a boy’s kite, soaring at first into the air before jerkily crashing down. Desserts overflow at a chic boozery where a self-avowed Contrarian holds court, monologuing at length about how art means nothing any more, and that art patrons may as well just nail their money on the walls. Ivy’s and Tony’s fates diverge for a stretch, during which time Tony apparently dies, and after a brief wait in Hades’ check-in, has an awkward encounter with a bazonga’d matriarch. Watching violent milk porn, he is eventually pulled into the presence of God themselves.
This dream quest is a delightful affair, shot in a crisp black and white that renders the experience old-fashioned while oozing a vibrant surrealistic pop. Kelson Succi is perfect as the plebian dreamer, and Iraci Estrela is the perfect foil as the down-to-earth occultist. The soundtrack pulsates jauntily, often performed by cool-cat jazz men on invisible instruments. It inspires thought, too, about many of the unknown and unknowable angles concerning fate, life, facsimile, and destiny. Are we all God’s avatars? What grand drama—or nonsense—is the end game? And how can we hope to control our reality when we exist in it at such a finite and arbitrary intersection? Who knows. Just dance like a bunny as you bend your mind to the rhythm of flickering lights.
Tony Odyssey has a worldwide distribution deal (excluding UK and Ireland) from Kaleidoscope Film Distribution, and should show up for viewing somewhere in the future.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
SATURDAY SHORT: THE EGGREGORES’ THEORY (2024)
A mysterious word sparks a deadly contagion that cannot be contained. CONTENT WARNING: Contains generative A.I. and sadness.
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MATAPANKI (2026)
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DIRECTED BY: Diego Fuentes
FEATURING: Ramon Galvez, Antonia McCarthy, Rosa Peñaloza, Diego Bravo, Rodrigo Lisboa
PLOT: Punk kid Ricardo unlocks superpowers from a mysterious alcoholic admixture and reluctantly pursues the path of a superhero.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The punk DIY aesthetic goes quite a ways in making this one a bit different—but the apocalyptic, kaiju-scale showdown with the US prez takes it over the finish line.
COMMENTS: Punks and their punk movies. Jerky camera maneuvering, hand-painted ¡Poder! effects, naturalistic acting, boozing, cigarette-lighter huffing, amiable grandmothers… Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, and they can’t even afford to film in color!
Of course, I jest. (And I’m something of a square.) To be honest, this film is quite charming. Ricardo and his pals have a healthy social thing going: the cover charge at the club they frequent can be paid through second-hand books. All they’re trying to do is live their low-key party lives on their own terms. But as is always the case, the Man (in particular, the Gringo) wants to bring ’em down.
With an opener straight out of Stan Brakhage‘s dark alchemy, Matapanki‘s punk cred is never in question, despite the feel-good throughline. The superhero storyline unspools in thrash time, taking somewhere under an hour (if you don’t include the credits). Viewers get a wallop of antiestablishmentarianism, with fast cuts and vibrant doodles whenever our hero (and later, the supervillain) pumps up the ¡Poder! Matapanki jouncily stumbles toward the finish line, keeping merely oddball throughout (with more than a few hints of Repo Man) until culminating with a BANG! when Super Punk Boy battles Super Neocon Gringo Man.
Take that, you square! And don’t you ever mess with our anarcho-drunken heroes again.
Matapanki does have a worldwide distribution deal with Italy’s Minerva Pictures, so it should become available to the general public in the nearish future.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: