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The first time I
watched this film, all I kept thinking was how weird it is. The second time I
watched it, I came to the conclusion that the weirdness is what I liked most about it.
It was made under Polish Communism but it didn’t seem like it at all. For
instance, there really wasn’t a life learning lesson that was meant to be taught.
It’s just an entertainment movie, full of fantasy, humor, and adventures all
mixed up together. The most obvious and important part is the mystery. The
film is divided in different stories, and although it is 3 hours long, it becomes very
powerful and enjoyable.
One aspect that shaped
the film in an absorbing manner was the fact that it was made in black and white. It
would never have the same effect if it would have been created in color. The black
and white picture emphasizes on gleaming light and gloomy shadows. The appropriate
dreamy atmosphere adds character to the surreal narrative.
The movie opens up with
a soldier finding an old, open book in the middle of a battle. The first few minutes
into the movie you wouldn’t even think of getting lost in the rest of the story.
Towards the end of the first scene you start to wonder. With bombs going off
in the background the soldier is very intrigued by the old book. So much that when
the enemy invades the house with guns to his head, he begs them to wait while he finishes
looking at the book. The book captures the enemy’s interest as well, and he sends
his three men back to the battle while he joins his attention to read the manuscript.
The next part reveals in a way the crazy, weird (in a good way) movie that is about
to proceed. As they read together, the officer is interrupted by one of his soldiers
asking for some guidance. The officer just responds, “Shut the door, it’s
drafty!” The soldier shuts the door, just as a bomb explodes in the doorway, as if
that was a punch line in a joke. The two officers are unaffected by the distraction.
They just look at each other and return to the book, and that’s when the next
story begins.
Alphonse, the main
character, heads toward Madrid, traveling through a hostile country filled with all manner
of ghosts and demons. The soldier stops at a deserted inn to rest for the night.
Suddenly, a servant woman, one breast bare, appears and tells him that two ladies
want him to come to dinner. And that’s the last time anything remotely normal
happens, since the two ladies turn out to be his cousins and the morning after he wakes up
next to two hanging gypsies.
The following times
throughout the entire film when he wakes up on that spot the same music is heard in the
background. The music adds to the creepy atmosphere even more creepiness. You
would gain the same effect if you only heard the music without seeing any visuals.
It sounds very uncertain, meaning that it makes you feel like you are in a weird
place and something unwanted is about to happen. It makes the hairs on the
back of your neck stand up unlike Beethoven that was heard in the beginning. The
film wouldn’t give viewers the same kind of effect without the hypnotic music.
From the beginning of
the film, it is clear that The Saragossa Manuscript is not at all like the previous films
we have viewed. Throughout the movie that becomes more and more obvious when you see
female nudes in the same scenes with skeletons and characters with distorted parts of
their bodies. This could be explained by the great amount of fantasy in the film.
It includes the magic potions drunk form skulls, hanged bandit brothers, crazed
hermits warning people of Satan, gypsies describing erotic adventures, and two beautiful
princesses engaging the officer into a threesome.
The film achieves this
power partially through the blending of deathly and sensuous imagery, but also because the
director uses his medium to spin tales that are at once surreal and essential. It
takes you inside stories only to have characters in those stories begin telling a tale
about someone who wants told him. It goes on and on until you’re sitting there and
wondering how did the story wind up there. Another thing that adds to the confusion
is the actors dressed in Spanish costumes that are speaking Polish. It is very
difficult to see where reality ends and fantasy begins. It may be because there is
very little reality being shown.
The film maintains a
sense of playfulness, something that influences its characters as much as its viewers.
I thing that is what makes a lot of people keep watching or the fact that you are
so confused that you just want to stick around and see what unravels. Halfway
through Alphonse’s adventures, he begins to suspect that his actions are made by himself
but by a words in a book. He worries whether the stories cannot be changed, and that
his own actions are pointless. As confused as I was when I watched it, I can imagine
how Alphonse felt. I am surprised he didn’t go crazy with all that confusion but I am
sure that the hope of seeing the two lovely ladies again kept his mind sane.
I am not quite sure how
to conclude this or any other complicated three hour film. I can’t really talk
about the plot because the film consists of several plots, which would make a long and
boring conclusion and it would be even more confusing than the film itself. I
suppose that’s because the film doesn’t consist of reality, and surrealism is too hard
to interpret. I can’t tell you lessons I learned because I don’t think that at
any given moment I will wake up next to two hanging gypsies or a half eaten dinner with an
uncertain sense of sin. I am not saying that it’s impossible, just very unlikely.
The long three hours get very exhausting toward the end of the film.
When the film wraps up toward the end, the end becomes the beginning and vice
versa. The fact that it was very confusing makes my opinion about the film just
that.
by Klara Zelinka
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