Allodole sul filo - Jiri Menzel

basta un film come questo per seppellire il socialismo "reale", e infatti anche questo film, come molti di grandi registi cecoslovacchi, non è stato visto fino alla caduta del Muro.
sceneggiatura del grande Bohumil Hrabal.
nel 1990 ha poi vinto l'Orso d'Oro a Berlino, come risarcimento, evidentemente.
un gran bel film, e la prima parte è strepitosa, non perdetevelo - Ismaele


QUI il film completo, con sottotitoli in italiano



Iniziato nel 1968, interrotto in seguito all'invasione sovietica della Cecoslovacchia, il film di Menzel poté essere concluso soltanto nel 1990, dopo il crollo del Muro di Berlino. Intelligente, ironico, asciutto, pacato, ma implacabile come l'opera di Bohumil Hrabal da cui è tratto, "Allodole sul filo" è il ritratto dello stato d'animo di chi riesce a cantare pur trovandosi in bilico sul baratro. E, come allodole sui fili dell'elettricità, anche questi personaggi possono sopravvivere soltanto stando l'uno accanto all'altro. Dalla visione del film spero che possa scaturire un invito a riscoprire i film di Menzel e a leggere le opere, divertenti e intelligenti, del grande scrittore moravo Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997).
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It is little wonder that this film was withheld from release by the communist government of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to its release in 1990 at the Berlin Film Festival. What's amazing is that it was made at all and that, having been made, it survived to be shown. The story concerns the irrepressible goodness of people imprisoned by the government in labour camps, as they struggle against all odds to retain their humanity. The story focuses on two small groups of prisoners: one of men, the other of women. They have been imprisoned for such apparently minor crimes as attempting to find out what has happened to missing loved ones. The two groups manage to interact and some romance even springs up between them. From time to time, prisoners are spirited away in a mysterious black car, never to be seen again. Reviewers were lavish in their praise of this film, which is funny, bitter, satirical, allegorical, and rich with imagery that is particularly meaningful to those who endured similar privations through living under repressive regimes.
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...As in Hrablal’s other works the characters remain resolutely human and defy the simplistic ideology that they have been required to adopt. Hrabal himself stated even in these times there were human beings “who had not succumbed to the semantic confusion, but called things and events by their name.” Through this they remain honourable. Indeed much of the film is devoted to the daily events that make a man a man and separate him from an animal. They discuss the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, keep fish and retain optimism and honour around family events like love, marriage and the pleasures of family. Each character lives in the best way he or her can with a kind of internal freedom.

The men’s supervisor is played by the incredibly creepy Rudolf Hrusinky (brilliant in the starring role of The Cremator, one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen) who speaks endlessly of the pleasures of work, reminding his charges always of his own history as a workman. He is one of the films great comic foils, as to emphasize his nearness to the work, he will ‘contribute’ in the smallest way imaginable each time he is to talk to them men. In an amazing scene when they are tossing typewriters into the scrap, he grabs one, throws it and moves on, revealing more what he has left behind and the guilt around his own power rather tan any sort of affinity with his very brilliant workers. As the film continues, his dark, sleazy character is revealed as we see him lurking behind the railings to witness the arrest of a worker he has secretly implicated or in a scene (that has a slow build up throughout the film) where he is washing down naked pubescent Roma girls in the name of hygiene. I can’t think of anyone who plays a creepy villain better than Rudolf Hrusinky.

The film is dotted with references to socialism, through slogans interspersed throughout the film and several other events. Members of the communist youth movement are invited to the yard to look at the “faces soaked in imperialism”. The extremely human faces of the women are grinning from behind their fence and the grimaces on the faces of the men turn to good-natured snarls as the children try to move in for a closer look. Romantic and OPtimistic slogans in the form of half torn paper banners behind desks, or drooping cloth banners on the outside of buildings  or faded and rusted signs are constantly juxtaposed with the seedy realities of a self-seeking, absurd and cruel police state...

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...La charge politique sans détour étonne, même dans le contexte du Printemps de Prague dont l’esprit semble avoir perduré quelques temps encore après l’invasion des troupes du Pacte de Varsovie, le 21 août 1968.

La virulence sarcastique du propos est encore renforcée par l’humour (parfois égrillard) et la paradoxale douceur qui imprègnent tout le film. Les intellectuels en phase de rééducation dans l’usine se lancent dans de vastes débats politico-philosophiques émaillés de citations, s’enflamment pour les victoires du coureur de fond Emil Zátopek (lalocomotive tchèque) contre le français Mimoun aux Jeux Olympiques d’Helsinki et communiquent avec les jeunes femmes condamnées elles aussi à travailler là (pour tentative de fuite à l’étranger) sous l’oeil bienveillant d’un gentil policier - ange gardien dont on assiste au mariage avec une bohémienne un peu sauvage (ne pouvant dormir dans un lit, elle passe la nuit au dessus de l’armoire).
Car Alouettes, le fil à la patte baigne dans une délicieuse ambiance poétique qui doit beaucoup aux dialogues de Hrabal mais aussi à la mise en scène, légère et inspirée, de Menzel et au charme rêveur des interprètes...

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...Menzel and Hrabal are humanists, not polemicists, and their depiction of Stalin-era work-camp life is on the sunny side. But the director makes astute microcosmic use of the scrap-yard setting, and the movie abounds with Hrabal's playfully metaphysical wit and earthy romanticism as it quietly picks apart the totalitarian impulse. The warmth is genuine - even the Party men are human-scaled (Rudolf Hrušínský’s performance as the true-believer trustee is beautifully judged) - but deceptive, poking fun at socialist cant but recognizing its chilly reality in the black sedans that turn up for workers who say too much. "Where are the good days when people respected and loved each other?" the winsome cook asks a dotty dignitary, prompting one such visitation. Larks on a String mourns the interruption of those days yet maintains a hopeful, good-humored vigil for their return.
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