The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun (Faunovo velmi pozdni odpoledne) - Vera Chytilová

il film ci mostra le difficoltà e i turbamenti di un vecchio t(r)ombeur des femmes, ormai al tramonto.
musica (bellissima, come sempre) di Jiří Stivín.
le opere minori di Vera Chytilová sono comunque da vedere - Ismaele

QUI il film completo, sottotitolato in inglese

I'm not sure what this movie is about, or if it is any good. It covers a period of time in the life of an older man, who works in an office in Prague and has an interest in young ladies. He has a flamboyant personalty, as revealed through his various exclamations and comments to himself, though it's unclear if he is a fool or a gentleman. Seems the intention of the movie is some sort of existential absurdism, and it's rather fragmentary with bizarre camera-work at times. Though by all rights it should be an obnoxious experience, the film seems to have a sincere playfulness about it instead of being pretentious or cynical. Sucharípa's sympathetic performance enhances the obscure plot, though whether the movie is enjoyable probably depends on the viewer's mood.

da qui

A bachelor named Faun with a Don Juan complex, seized with a hypochondriac’s fear of the ineluctable approach of death, enters a race against time’s passage. Faun’s sexual love is imbued with the narcissistic vanity of a self-satisfied bacchant who even towards old age can’t manage to forgo his lifelong pose as an irresistable seducer of women. He desperately searches for meaning in superficial, fleeting sex.

da qui

… Unlike films that indulge in ego-boosting scenarios involving one man’s desire for a garland of easily seduced women, The Late Afternoon is not made by men. The dreamy blur of Karel Faun’s sexual experiences is not that of a Casanova (much as he would like to think so) but a mocking étude made by two sarcastic women, ridiculing the alleged hegemony of male desire and the passivity of the female. As Faun stumbles over in the fading autumnal park in a drunken haze of confused attachments, he wonders: what does this park remind him of? The undeniable rotting and decay under his feet should surely hint at finitude, an autumn of one’s years. Not so for Karel. It’s the youthful walks with autumn leaves he remembers in his ever-deluded misreading of life’s hints. The libidinal marathon he pursues is so out of synch with reality that Karel’s phallic faunism, while ultimately eerie, is also a caricature. Faun is way too late for hunting, and though the women might appear interested and friends may envy him, the times have changed, not just for Karel Faun but for gender politics in general – and Chytilová and Krumbachová let every woman in the film prove it.

da qui