MAN IS NOT A BIRD B+
Yugoslavia (81 mi) 1965 d: Dušan Makavejev
I feed her, I clothe her, and I can beat her too - - she’s my wife.
— Barbulović (Stole Arandjelovic)
Dušan Makavejev’s first feature, this is an absurdist glimpse of life behind the Iron Curtain where there are continual cracks in the Communist armor, where despite the totalitarian clamps on people’s lives in a regimented, overly controlled society where there isn’t an ounce of freedom, people still distinguish themselves all too crudely in an attempt to break the chains of repression. In a society where everyone’s lives are subject to Party Committee approval, there are few choices, so most are resigned to spending the rest of their lives as heartless minions of the State, powerless and ineffectual, shackled to the dispassionate idea of serving the greater good while their own lives dissolve in misery and toil, as no one in this society is allowed any kind of personal life. The only area not controlled by the State are petty crimes and ill-advised amorous adventures, unconventional opportunities that offer a kind of wiggle room between the cracks where people are free to connive and steal and barter their way into a kind of under-the-table no man’s land. There are no illusions about anyone having a “good” life, as everyone is duty bound to live a life of national sacrifice. As a result, this Black and White film is layered in a grim documentary style that accentuates the bleakness of the landscape, set in a mining town where nearly everyone works in this colossal monstrosity of a factory, an industrial wasteland digging up copper, silver, and gold, where the edges of town have been stripped into layered steps of dead and mutilated earth, probably toxic due to the era in which this takes place. Meanwhile, manning the phones in a cramped, tiny office behind the scenes are the Communist Party leaders making the fateful decisions that affect everyone’s lives.
Despite the realist overtones, this is a dark satiric comedy poking fun at just how ridiculous human futility can be, as the most treasured and memorable times are those quick moments stolen away from the State where you have the pleasure of doing what you please. Rajka (Milena Dravić) is the flirtatious hairdresser who offers to rent a room in her own home to an arriving engineer, Jan Rudinski (Janez Vrhovec), an important man responsible for building the turbo engine that will modernize the plant. Despite his older and more low key demeanor, she makes herself available whenever she can while also responding to the crude vulgarities of a local truck driver, Bosko (Boris Dvornik), a guy who brags about his sexual conquests with notches on the steering wheel of his truck. Meanwhile, one of the factory laborers, Barbulović (Stole Arandjelovic), is hauled into the police station when his wife accuses another woman of wearing one of her dresses, but her lowlife of a husband acknowledges he gave it to his sexual mistress as a gift. But the whole thing gets started with a raucous performance by a sultry female singer in a bar filled with drunken men, where she works them into a frenzy before a fight breaks out, where the singer herself may have been the unintended victim of a knife attack, a perfect example of the kind of uncivilized chaos that exists at the lower realms of an industrial society, where people are used to taking matters into their own hands, all of which serves the interests of a powerful State which can intervene with the appropriate law and order measures, returning the equilibrium back into the hands of the authorities.
Shot almost entirely with a hand-held camera, Makavejev captures in intimate detail, offering plenty of claustrophobic, tightly composed indoor shots, just what it’s like living under the microscope where your life is constantly scrutinized by others, where you desperately need a moment away where you can breathe, but inevitably the only choices available are the wrong kind of choices. Here in this factory town, the workers are dependent on the Party bosses for jobs and are depicted as lowly menial laborers who know everyone else’s business, where in a small community nothing is kept secret for long. Rajka yearns to get away and pins her hopes on the lauded engineer, a decorated Party member with a reputation for bringing in work projects ahead of time. While he may be the highest ranking boss due to the significance of his job, he is just as powerless and pathetic as the rest, as his position depends on the approval of the Party as well. While the film is more conventional by Makavejev’s standards, he does compose a brilliantly hilarious set piece inside the factory itself with the blazing forges spilling off sparks, as an entire orchestra marches through carrying their instruments, where one of the soloist singer’s dress catches on fire, but they march into a pre-arranged open space, where chairs have been set up and the seating arrangement is by rank and social status, depending on what job you perform. As they break into Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his 9th Symphony, Makavejev simultaneously cuts into a scene of Rajka and the truck driver sneaking a quickie in his truck, while the stark contrast couldn’t be more evident between the sublime genius of Beethoven and the lowly factory workers who will never for a day in their lives have access to that same degree of civilized liberation of the spirit. Instead they are literally stuck within the confines of the factory itself, as if this was their real home and/or prison for the rest of their lives. Considered the “cornerstone of Eastern European cinema,” the idea of the lowly individual dwarfed by the indestructible power of the State is a common refrain in Makavejev films that only grow more irreverent, where over time his take on sex and politics become outrageously liberating expressions.
Shot almost entirely with a hand-held camera, Makavejev captures in intimate detail, offering plenty of claustrophobic, tightly composed indoor shots, just what it’s like living under the microscope where your life is constantly scrutinized by others, where you desperately need a moment away where you can breathe, but inevitably the only choices available are the wrong kind of choices. Here in this factory town, the workers are dependent on the Party bosses for jobs and are depicted as lowly menial laborers who know everyone else’s business, where in a small community nothing is kept secret for long. Rajka yearns to get away and pins her hopes on the lauded engineer, a decorated Party member with a reputation for bringing in work projects ahead of time. While he may be the highest ranking boss due to the significance of his job, he is just as powerless and pathetic as the rest, as his position depends on the approval of the Party as well. While the film is more conventional by Makavejev’s standards, he does compose a brilliantly hilarious set piece inside the factory itself with the blazing forges spilling off sparks, as an entire orchestra marches through carrying their instruments, where one of the soloist singer’s dress catches on fire, but they march into a pre-arranged open space, where chairs have been set up and the seating arrangement is by rank and social status, depending on what job you perform. As they break into Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his 9th Symphony, Makavejev simultaneously cuts into a scene of Rajka and the truck driver sneaking a quickie in his truck, while the stark contrast couldn’t be more evident between the sublime genius of Beethoven and the lowly factory workers who will never for a day in their lives have access to that same degree of civilized liberation of the spirit. Instead they are literally stuck within the confines of the factory itself, as if this was their real home and/or prison for the rest of their lives. Considered the “cornerstone of Eastern European cinema,” the idea of the lowly individual dwarfed by the indestructible power of the State is a common refrain in Makavejev films that only grow more irreverent, where over time his take on sex and politics become outrageously liberating expressions.
