Thoughts on two Piotr Svalkin movies
Having now seen four of Piotr Szulkin’s movies (all from his apocalypse tetralogy) I can glean a couple of things. This guy HATES prostitutes and HATES propaganda. He often holds onto the hypersexualized media that his worlds push, but also the intense censorship. My favorite of these four films was The War of the Worlds: Next Century. This movie follows a lonely and destitute man who is trying to make sense of the world that is now being invaded (and carefully integrated) by Martians. The man, Iron Idem, is a TV personality that gives the news and wears a bright blonde wig. It turns out that though the Martians seem to be at least vaguely malicious, it is the state that is the real enemy. We watch the state accost Iron, making him say and do things for the good of public image. Something that I really love about Szulkin’s movies is that his main protagonists often take the abuse given to them without much struggle. They drift through the world, however absurd it is, and they let it roll over them. This film asks a question that has stuck with me. “Listen, everything has its limits. And a price. Do you want to rebel? Can you afford to?” I believe this quote is a really nice companion to these pathetic characters, characters who are truly terrified, but willing to become pundits for whatever entity is greater than them. There is a shot towards the end of the film where we believe that Iron will be executed by a firing squad. There is a camera there to film it, and the shot frames both a small TV that is hooked up to the camera and the real scene. Iron is tied to a pole, and the firing squad shoots. On the TV Iron slumps over and dies quickly and brutally. In the actual scene Iron looks around after the shots and then walks away. These two things happen in tandem, which creates a lovely shot with a clear intention. Though Iron was never killed he did not win. The media will continue to lie and shape its own meanings, and he will become irrelevant.
My second favorite film was Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes. It starts with a prison on a space ship. The film gives the explanation that because humans are so happy on earth no one wants to explore other planets anymore, so they make felons do it. They have a prisoner named Scope who they shove into a small ship with TV screens where he can pick an artificial voice and image to keep him sane over the journey to a new planet. He, of course, picks the only female one, who promptly gives innuendos before starting to sing opera. When he lands on the new planet he is immediately greeted by a man who looks just like a human and other human structures like cars and buildings. He is really swept into the moment as this man tells him (not much explaining at this point) that he is a hero and is awarded anything he wants before the ceremony. He is specifically awarded an underage sex worker, who he deigns not to sleep with (nice of him). Though most things on this planet resemble that of Earth, there are some clear indicators of alien life. They seem to eat body parts here like fingers, though that may be just a delicacy. The people here are able to detach their limbs without much sweat. As the film goes on it becomes clear that this society has a ceremony where they impale “heroes” on a large pole to discourage crimes. The film uses media as a big focal point again, having the state encourage Scope to commit heinous acts, ones that can be sensationalized in the newspaper. He eventually does give into his more carnal desires and attempts to sleep with he sex worker introduced earlier, and he is promptly stopped by state authorities who arrange the scene and take pictures to stage things into a more reactionary image. The film ends differently from any other of his films I have seen, with Scope and the sex worker flying away on their spaceship (having successfully escaped the pole), and a title card that translates to “And they live happily ever after.” Crazy!! I have no idea what any of that could mean to him in the bigger context of his films.