This movie is a stunner, to be sure, and easily decades ahead of its time; the atmosphere of degradation and decay, and just plain desolation, is far beyond anything accomplished in any other film, and I include the immortal MAD MAX 2.
However, I have to, HAVE TO, ask the question of whether this film works, as do most Central/Eastern European films, on more than one level, and whether there is inner commentary contained in the film.
Watching it, I was struck by the subtext of how the old world has ended, and a new world begun, with new and young people with no knowledge of what went before; this is a basic tenet of radical Communism. The old people, clutching to the remnants of their soft and settled existence, dreaming of a life gone and never to exist again... as the Old One dies, so does the last vestige of any form of culture, or art, of even civilized behavior, and all that is left is a gramophone record of ROLL OUT THE BARREL being carried on horseback by heavily armed and murderous beasts; who themselves lack the capacity to reproduce.
I watched this film as a veiled indictment of the Eastern Bloc Communist belief that required history to be eradicated, for a new world to emerge after that holocaust, only to find the act of destruction (with an intent to rebuild) resulted in nothing less than the death of civilization and the creation of savages with no higher conscience.
I admit to an influence, though, in that I was in the Balkans during the 'wars' of the 1990s; and one of the most striking and heartbreaking things was many people's belief that Socialism had created a New Man, with no history; and how unfathomably shocked they were to have these fine creations of humanity revealed as violent animals bent on nothing more than mindless destruction.
However, I have to, HAVE TO, ask the question of whether this film works, as do most Central/Eastern European films, on more than one level, and whether there is inner commentary contained in the film.
Watching it, I was struck by the subtext of how the old world has ended, and a new world begun, with new and young people with no knowledge of what went before; this is a basic tenet of radical Communism. The old people, clutching to the remnants of their soft and settled existence, dreaming of a life gone and never to exist again... as the Old One dies, so does the last vestige of any form of culture, or art, of even civilized behavior, and all that is left is a gramophone record of ROLL OUT THE BARREL being carried on horseback by heavily armed and murderous beasts; who themselves lack the capacity to reproduce.
I watched this film as a veiled indictment of the Eastern Bloc Communist belief that required history to be eradicated, for a new world to emerge after that holocaust, only to find the act of destruction (with an intent to rebuild) resulted in nothing less than the death of civilization and the creation of savages with no higher conscience.
I admit to an influence, though, in that I was in the Balkans during the 'wars' of the 1990s; and one of the most striking and heartbreaking things was many people's belief that Socialism had created a New Man, with no history; and how unfathomably shocked they were to have these fine creations of humanity revealed as violent animals bent on nothing more than mindless destruction.