Shamanism

Szamanka (1996) - Zulawski






A feral engineering student, only known as Wloszka- the Italian (Iwona Petry), for her pizza making skills begins an intense physical relationship with Michal (Boguslaw Linda), an anthropology professor. Her uninhibited behavior and mannerism are somewhere between animalistic and schizophrenic, as she jerks back and forth on the street/in bed or slobbering on catfood on the floor or smearing red meat on her face. Michal somewhat connects Wloszka's manic energy to his new discovery, an ancient body of a yogi/shaman he dug up. The extensive tattoos on the back of his body from his tailbones to the head and missing of the back of his skull suggest that his brain is blown out by some physical ecstasy he experienced. Because of Wloszka's intense physical grip on him, Michal slowly descends into madness and loses his career and rich wife.

As usually the case with other Zulawski's obsessive love stories, the carnal desire and its profundity wins over the intellect. Iwona Petry's raw, unpolished performance brings another dimension to already towering Zulawski heroine mould. His jab at catholicism and visual metaphors (Wloszka works at a construction site with big machinary and meat factory and so on) are sometimes too unsubtle, but at the same time gives us some of the most striking images. Simple and honest, it might be the most thematically uncluttered Zulawski film I've seen so far.

Great Art Needs Suffering

The Public Woman (1984) - Zulawski









Ethel (Valerie Kaprisky) does a nude modeling for money. But when she goes in for an audition for a film adaptation production of Dostoesky's Possessed, and catches the eye of Kessling (Francis Huster), the charismatic director/star of the project, everything changes. But soon Kessling realizes that Ethel is not much of an actress. She lacks life experience to portray everything that he wants in the role. His megalomaniacal demands from his cast and crew don't help either. Their tumultuous onset/off set romance also suffers. While being laid off from the project, Ethel starts romancing with a poor Czech immigrant, Milan (Lambert Wilson), whose actress wife might have been murdered by Kessling in some insidious political maneuvering. Milan gets manipulated to kill an archbishop (in order to save his wife) and being pursued by the secret whatever. So in real life, Ethel starts playing the role of Milan's wife.

As usual, Zulawski creates another manic, emotionally charged, over the top melodrama where he pushes his heroine to the brink of insanity. Baby faced Kaprisky bares it all as an actress whose 'acting' bleeds in to reality and vice versa. Huster's amazing as the mad genius and Lambert Wilson's intensity betrays his wispy, melancholic features. The film's energetic, 'revolution is in the air' mood is created by Sacha Vierny's fast moving, virtuosic cinematography.

Zulawski seems to suggest that truly great art (and therefore life) needs suffering. All the hell Ethel goes through, she becomes a better actress at the end. There is no succinct distinction between art and life in his films. We all have roles to play on this stage we call life. It's messy, tragic and full of intrigue. The Public Woman is another dense, heady film. I can't help but admire Zulawski's bravura filmmaking.

Word Play

My Nights are More Beautiful than Your Days/Mes Nuits sont Plus Belles que Vos Jours (1989) - Zulawski
Lucas (Jacques Dutronc) just invented a new computer language that will revolutionize the world. But at the same time, he is diagnosed with some terminal brain disease that is eating away his brains and leaving him only speaking in non-sensical, free-association word games. He meets a lovely actress Blanche (Sophie Marceau) who is just about to become a star. They bond as they provide narratives for a fighting old couple on the sidewalk- are they in love or drunk? It's a love at first sight. Maybe because of his illness, he clings to her as if she is the sun and she in turn, sees him as a pure soul who might provide a solace from vultures that surround her.

Blanche takes off to seaside Biarritz to perform her clairvoyant act in a glitzy casino hotel and Lucas follows her. They go through tumultuous, surreal days and nights communicating only in word play, connected by childhood trauma (which is the weakest link of the film, btw) and understanding each other in madness.

Sophie Marceau bares it all in another Andrej Zulawski's film about love. Lighter than his other emotionally charged dramas but hardly any less amusing, My Nights showcases Marceau's beauty every chance it gets. She has a difficult duty of reacting off of Dutronc's checked-out-at-the-door performance. He's like a floating target that you can't ever pin down. I've seen My Nights when I was in High School, out of horny teen boy curiosity. Marceau was really big when I was growing up. And I never bothered to look seriously at the subtitles. The version I saw just now had great subs. I wonder how the delicate word games they play in the film come across in Korean. Probably not too well.

Mad Love

L'Amour Braque (1985) - Zulawski



Inspired by Dostoevsky's The Idiot, the films tells the story of Léon (Francis Huster), an idiot just released from a mental hospital in Hungary. He befriends with the wild gang of bank robbers, headed by Micky (Tchéky Karyo) on the train to Paris. After getting back Micky's girl Mary (luminous young Sophie Marceau) from the other rival factions, they proceed to hunt down the powerful Venin brothers who wronged Mary's mother. Léon hopelessly falls for Mary and she does a see-sawing act between two men, driving everyone involved crazy.

L'Amour Braque is just an amazing movie experience. Zulawski's manic energy has no comparison. The film is hard to follow since its dialog is totally nonsensical. But one grandiose, emotionally and physically bare, violent scenes after another, you get into the groove of things. You get to feel the film first, as you try to digest what it all means. Chaos is methodology and it's an amazing feat. His examination of Love and animal instinct is embodied by Sophie Marceau. She eats up the screen. Karyo and Huster do their best, but the film definitely belongs to Marceau. You can't take your eyes off of her when she's on screen.

Marriage Bliss

Possession (1981) - Zulawski

Mark (Sam Neill) comes back to Cold War Berlin after finishing some insidious gov't job, resulting his subject still wearing pink sox. He is taking a break for the sake of his family. It turns out, his wife Anne (Isabelle Adjani) is having an affair with a very odd, über German man, or so he thought. She disappears, comes back to tend their son, gets in to emotional arguments with Mark (both verging into hysteria), then disappears again. Mark puts a tail on her only to have the private detective he hired go missing. There is someone else, or something...


I remember watching this as a curious and horny teen late at night, not understanding what the hell's going on most of the running time. It was that mondo curio value (Isabel Adjani having sex with tentacled monster!) that attracted me. Ah, those were the days.


Possession is an omnifarious film that can result in multiple interpretations. I hear Zulawski was going through a messy divorce during that time. This gory deconstruction of marriage is both farcical to its supposedly sacred institution and emotionally acute. The physical manifestation of raw emotions in Possession has no equal in film, save von Trier's Antichrist maybe. Adjani is unbelievable as the woman who can't be possessed/dispossessed. The ten minute freakout scene in the subway station alone is worth the admission price. Sam Neill shows that he predates Bill Pullman in the fire-within whitebread department. Bruno Nuyten's dizzing, pre-steadycam cinematography is dazzling and desolate West Berlin with The Wall's omniscient presence is perfect for the setting of the best break-up film (sorry, High Fidelity fans) of all time.