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| Pavoncello |
The third night of Andrzej Zulawski's complete retrospective at BAM was incredibly exciting. For the first time in the US, Zulawski's short films for Polish television screened in color as they were shot and originally intended to be seen with new 35mm prints. Leading up to this series, out of the entire Zulawski filmography, the only works of his I had not viewed were the shorts and the Russian opera, Boris Godounov, which will screen on Monday, March 19.
Pavoncello is Zulawski's first short film and is from 1967. This film emerged after a period of time Zulawski spent working under Andrzej Wadja. The story of Pavoncello stems from the writing work of Stefan Zerowski, who also collaborated with Wadja and Walerian Borowczyk. Zulawski's short film for television is an intriguing piece, even more so when thinking about Zulawski's feature films to follow. Pavoncello revolves around a young violinist who becomes engulfed in a tricky situation with a young beautiful woman and her elderly husband. Immediately, Zulawski's pure talent as a director with a knack for capturing alluring images and strong performances is on display. The film is romantic and has doses of comedic moments. Lines can be drawn to aspects of That Most Important Thing: Love as well as Fidelity.
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| The Song of Triumphant Love |
It would be most appreciated if Mondo Vision include these shorts as bonus features in an upcoming release.
That Most Important Thing: Love (l'important c'est d'aimer) is Andrzej Zulawski's third feature film and is his first French language film. It was made in 1975 and follows 1972's The Devil, which was banned outright in Poland. This is an emotionally devastating work of art that contains both Romy Schneider and Klaus Kinski at the peak of their crafts. For me, all of the elements swim beautifully together in this film. The direction, the performances, and the music all ring out as exceptional and utterly sincere.
As for feature films, this is Zulawski's first work that deals with a love triangle of sorts, unless one counts the possibly hallucinatory love triangle in The Third Part of the Night. Euro Crime and Spaghetti Western mainstay Fabio Testi plays Servais, a photographer who winds up on the set of what looks to be an utterly horrible and degrading exploitation film starring Romy Schneider's character Nadine. The over the top director seen is yelling at Schneider, repeatedly screaming wildly to say "I love you," to a bruised and bleeding man lying on the ground. Servais takes pictures of Nadine without permission from the set before invoking the ire of the director who demands he be ejected without his film. An explosive fight erupts between some crew members and Servais. The pictures taken capture a woman broken and lost in a repugnant world that surrounds her. This is the start of another circular Zulawski film.
Soon after Servais shows up where Nadine and her cinephile husband Jacques live. Jacques is played amazingly well by singer Jacques Dutronc. Servais explains to Nadine that he wants to take more pictures of her. There is an instant connection between these two characters that transcends words. It becomes apparent that Nadine is striving for more important work as an actress. She is naturally aging and that is weighing on her as far as a finite timeline of external beauty and acting is concerned. Servais empathizes with Nadine as the two are unmoored in a cesspool of nothingness. He is a freelance photographer for a twisted and exploitative man named Mazelli (Claude Dauphin), who strong-arms Servais to take pictures of increasingly perverse scenarios. Servais secretly funds an avant-garde stage production of Richard III with the sole purpose of getting Nadine quality theater work. In order to get the needed money to give to the theater director, Servais begrudgingly asks Mazelli for a loan. Mazelli warns Servais that more will be asked of him and to swallow his pride.
In the theater production Klaus Kinski plays an actor, Karl-Heinz Zimmer. There are touching scenes between Kinski and Schneider about the nature of acting and how frequently it becomes disappointing and or tiresome. In these scenes, one can't help but think there is a direct link to these lines and some of the work both actors did in their uneven careers, especially Kinski, who notoriously worked on countless sub-par films for financial reasons only. When Karl-Heinz isn't giving Nadine physical and emotional support, he is shown in isolated anguish or absurd outbursts amongst others. The director of the theatrical play is immensely bizarre as a gaggle of background characters in That Most Important Thing: Love and other Zulawski films often are. The theater world is depicted as an equally outrageous spectacle as the pathetic thugs that follow Mazelli and his wife around.
The phenomenal Georges Delerue provides an overwhelmingly beautiful and sorrowful score. A massive part of the emotional impact of the film is due to the highly expressive string work. Zulawski has stated that he told Delerue to make something in the vein of his score for Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt. Zulawski has been forthcoming over time of his admiration for Godard's Contempt and it comes through while adding so much to the basic premise. I love Godard's Contempt along with the Delerue soundtrack, yet That Most Important Thing: Love gets under my skin more each and every time I see it. Zulawski has a great ear and sense of rhythm when it comes to maximizing sonic source material and repeating musical cues in relation to cutting as needed for the scene and film as a whole. The repeating string motif is the heart of the film along with Romy Schneider's unbelievable facial expressions. Her brave work in That Most Important Thing: Love can't be emphasized enough. Next to Bertrand Tavernier's marvelous and timely film which would follow, la mort en direct (Death Watch), Schneider was never better.
The love triangle among Servais, Nadine, and Jacques develops early and provides the film's momentum. The instant unspoken love between Servais and Nadine is a force that is glaringly obvious to Jacques and drives him to the depths of despair. The photographer captures images. The actress performs the captured images. The collector hoards images of a bygone era. Servais and Nadine live, while Jacques is nostalgic and numb. He rummages through black and white stills of Hollywood actors by himself and with other obsessive cinephile fans. The rooms of the borrowed house in which Nadine and Jacques live are littered with film posters and film stills. These collected images and films seem to be the only things in Jacques' life. Even though Servais and Nadine find themselves in a world of shit, at least they are striving for something. Jacques is a passive character who contributes nothing and remains powerless because he is aware that he lacks the will to create. His snippy remarks to and about Nadine betray his sterile and ultimately shallow worldview. There is a certain type of struggle that Servais and Nadine individually and collectively share. It is part of an ongoing theme in Zulawski's film world. This type of struggle re-appears in La femme publique with Valerie Kaprisky's lead character. This struggle may be described as madly desiring to penetrate an outside world that is lackluster, banal and/or grotesque with a projection of one's internal strength and beauty. Transcendence may or may not occur though it is absolutely necessary to try in an honest way to cross the threshold.
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| Andrzej Zulawski directing Romy Schneider |
