Tag Archives: Experimental

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: TOUT VA BIEN (1972)

AKA All’s Well, Just Great, Everything’s Alright

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DIRECTED BY: Jean-Luc Godard,

FEATURING: Yves Montand, ,

PLOT: Susan, an expatriate American journalist, and Jacques, her commercial-director husband, visit a sausage factory on the day that the workers launch a strike and are trapped in the building for two days; after the strike ends, they reflect on the decline of their leftist ideals, and their relationship.

Still from Tout va bien (1972)

COMMENTS: A full year after it was published, a particular excerpt from KC Green’s webcomic “Gunshow” began to gain traction as a meme. The strip, “On Fire,” tracked the fate of a bowler-hatted canine as he maintained his optimism in the face of rising and increasingly destructive flames. Intriguingly, it was the first two panels that became a widely recognized meme, setting our inferno-consumed scene and enshrining the dog’s preternaturally calm assessment, “This is fine.” Lost in the commodification of the image was the build and climax, including Question Hound’s confident ignorance (“I’m okay with the events that are unfolding currently”), his more uncertain self-assurance (“That’s okay, things are going to be okay”), and finally his ultimate fate in the conflagration, melted into hideous deformation like a decorative candle left in the attic. 

Tout Va Bien, which translates literally as “everything is going well,” lives in the space of those forgotten panels. While leftists remember the raucous events of May 68 for the drama of the strikes, protests, and occupations that brought France to a halt, the aftermath four years later find them exhausted, frustrated at their failure to transform society, and uncertain of the line between social and personal gain. So it is that a Communist leader, far from triumphing over the tyranny of capitalism, can be found in a store hawking his book. (“4.75 francs, marked down from 5.50!”) 

Godard and Gorin feel this uncertainty very keenly. Having spent the past several years trying to make Marxist movies in a Marxist fashion, Tout Va Bien was a step back into (relatively) mainstream cinema. As it happens, the movie begins with a pair of offscreen voices debating the traditional story elements needed in a successful film, followed by a series of checks being written to the many participants in the production. The message “you’ve got to spend money to make money” is clearly delivered.

But it’s not as though Jean-Luc Godard is going to suddenly go full Marvel. The subject of leftist dissatisfaction with their role in the political conversation is hardly mainstream subject matter. His technique is forcefully Brechtian, as characters frequently face the fourth wall to expand upon their complaints. And for all the power of having two international movie icons as your leads, the directors give them precious little to do beyond watch the actions around them as they unfold, and to describe their frustrations to each other—and to us. Godard may adopt the conventions of traditional moviemaking, but he puts them in service to a stridently political message, one that asks the question, “Why didn’t we change the world?”

Two of Godard and Gorin’s set pieces are genuine showstoppers. They build the factory set vertically, allowing us a peek into every room, much like the ship cutaway in Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (Contemporary critics regularly cited Jerry Lewis’ The Ladies Man as a visual inspiration.) This proves valuable in predicting the fate of the strike, as we watch the angry employees break down into factions, fight over their aims, alternate between pointed agitprop and steam-venting vandalism, while each of them insists that their part of the literal sausage-making process is the worst. This is bookended with a stunning tracking shot along the checkout lines at a impressively large supermarket, wherein we watch the lifecycle of a protest as it goes from citizens trying to go about their business to mass defiance to the inevitable violent crackdown by the authorities. These are not surprising messages, but they demonstrate vividly what Godard’s filmmaking acumen can bring to the telling.

Tout Va Bien is an elegy for active leftism. Five decades later, the situations echo strongly with current events, and the young people in the movie chanting “Cops! Bosses! Murderers!” feel like direct ancestors to the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protests of recent years. But the outcome is also mirrored in our time. As the film concludes, a chipper tune pops in to proclaim, “It’s sunny in France, nothing else matters.” It’s the kind of song that’s probably playing in a room filled with fire, while a melting dog nods along.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Godard’s strange fusion of his pre- and post-radicalized styles turned off critics and audiences alike, but Criterion’s lovingly assembled new DVD suggests that it warrants reappraisal. Though certainly dull and didactic at times, Tout Va Bien is remarkable foremost for its sustained twilight mood of exquisite resignation, of exhausted sadness and bone-deep world-weariness.”–Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club (home video release)

(This movie was nominated for review by Caleb Moss. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

366 UNDERGROUND: MOLKIPOLKI (2023)

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Weirdest!

Molkipolki can be watched for free courtesy of the author.

DIRECTED BY: Kyril Zach

FEATURING: Kyril Zach

PLOT: A man guides a series of unseen buyers through a house, with little luck.

COMMENTS: Kyril Zach does a number of things well in this odd little exercise, but his greatest coup is perhaps choosing such a versatile nonsense phrase. “Molkipolki” (featured prominently in Molkipolki) can, it seems, convey amusement, exposition, sadness, regret, flirtation, and frustration. The first actual words I recognized in this film came from the soundtrack, during the brief “Man I’m Horny” interlude. (This turns out to be a high point, as later we learn through a background song that “I Vomit When You Cook”, suggesting a deterioration in the relationship.) Emotions rise and fall throughout this… this…

This film takes place entirely in one home, which may be described as “Early-to-Late-20th-Century-Bourgeoisie-Fusion.” (Considering this residence is the property of either the director or a family member, I’ll abstain from further remarks on the matter.) Meet protagonist, selling this home. Or trying to. The opening act ends on a discouraging note, setting it up well for the eventual seduction—or something—in the second, which in turn primes the viewer for quiet melodrama in the third act. All this is done with one man, one house, one camera, and one word.

This man, Kyril Zach, is always interesting to watch. His gestures are articulated without being overblown, and camera positions suggest at least modest experience with the art of placing a recording box and pointing it. All the action is absurd, but with some “merely odd” touches dripped about to heighten the experience. (Nearly everything is mimed, but it tickled me to see the protagonist pretending empty-handedly to have a beverage while positioned right in front of a shelf filled with a variety of drinking vessels.) The setting, chosen I suspect because of access, is a chaotic mélange of tchotchkes and doo-dads curated over decades.

So for 45 minutes we hear “molkipolki” while watching this man miming amongst a mishmash—though the camera is tastefully diverted elsewhere when our hero gets lucky (if you take my meaning), showing instead a series of shots of decorative plates, wall vases, and a few taxidermy specimens. Points, certainly, for dedication: the only non-“molkipolki” uttered from his lips was an obliging “mmmmm!” shortly before the cooking-related stomach upset. The musical score (which can also be downloaded for free) veers between tin-plate angelic choir and gut-rumble novelty bluegrass, sometimes both together, creating a musical soundscape reminiscent of The Residents on their best behavior. And while the static camera work is largely functional, the sexy-time wall-shot sequence smacked so much of a Greenaway interlude, I can’t help but wonder…

This film came to us out of the blue from a singular-minded individual with something to say: “molkipolki.” And damned if he doesn’t say it, to considerable dramatic and comedic effect.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…am I having an acid flashback, or perhaps the first signs of a stroke?… I couldn’t make a single ounce of sense out of what I’d seen in the forty-five minutes of ‘Molkipolki’ – this could be THE most bizarre film I’ve ever seen in my entire LIFE.”–Jeremy Gladstone, IndyRed (contemporaneous)