#Dusan Antonijevic

[randomrichards]

MAN IS NOT A BIRD:

Two labour workers

Lust for the same hairdresser

Circus comes to town

[byneddiedingo]

Janez Vrhovec and Milena Dravic in Man Is Not a Bird (Dusan Makavejev, 1965) Cast: Milena Dravic, Janez Vrhovec, Stolan Arandjelovic, Eva Ras, Boris Dvornik, Roko Cirkovic, Dusan Antonijevic. Screenplay: Dusan Makavejev, Rasa Popov. Cinematography: Aleksandar Petkovic. Production design: Dragoljub Ivkov. Film editing: Ljubica Nesic, Ivanka Vukasovic. Music: Petar Bergamo. At first glance, Dusan Makavejev's first feature, Man Is Not a Bird, isn't much like his savage, surreal WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) and Sweet Movie (1974). Its focus on the working class reminded me of some of the other films that came out of Eastern Europe in the 1960s and '70s, such as Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde (1965), Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains (1966), and Krzysztof Kieslowski's Camera Buff (1979) -- humorous but filled with a strong irony, especially where the heavy-handed communist regime was concerned. The events are set in a place of bleak documentary realism, in this case a gray, sooty mining town -- Makavejev began by shooting a documentary in the mining town of Bor in what's now Serbia, but getting to know the people and their stories led to what we might call meta-documentary, a fictionalized Bor and inhabitants. Somehow, they eke out their lives in a dreary place where the only amusements seem to be a con-man hypnotist and a very shabby circus. The mine and adjacent processing plants are visions out of hell: At one point, musicians arrive for the performance of the "Ode to Joy" choral section of Beethoven's Ninth, and a few of them lose their way to the hall where they're performing and find themselves in the smelting area where a shower of sparks ignites one woman's long dress. But Makavejev never makes the depressing setting and the bleak and sometimes brutal lives of his characters oppressive. There is just enough distancing from these characters that we can see them ironically and find even the brutish, abusive Barbulovic (Stolan Arandjelovic) a satiric figure rather than a realistic one. The pomposity of the bosses in awarding the engineer Jan Rudinski (Janez Vrhovec) a medal and a concert instead of a bonus for finishing his installation of new turbines ahead of schedule is a keen glance as the communist bureaucracy. It's not a particularly likable film, and it clearly has moments where it avoids treading on the censors' sensibilities, but I prefer it to Makavejev's later, more unfettered work.

[myshowzip]

Old Surehand

Watch Old Surehand

Old Surehand: Old Surehand and his faithful old friend Old Wabble are on the trail of a cold-blooded killer with the nickname The General . The brother of Old Surehand was murdered by him. On the way Old Surehand and Old Wabble are involved in the running conflict between settlers and Comanches who are likely to go on the war path. Old Surehand can count on the support of his…