Arizona Dream (1992) - Emir Kusturica

Fourth feature from the remarkable Bosnian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, a piece of work in which more of a novelty we will appreciate, though certainly not all the news will be as positive as one would have wished. Kusturica, to begin this exercise, set what would be with this, his first and to-that-date only work outside his native Sarajevo, out of Yugoslavia, or more accurately, Bosnia. The cause comes to be the civil war that broke out in the Balkan country, an event that became untenable the fact of continuing producing films in a country of already turbulent and complex nature. Kusturica travels to the United States, to Hollywood to shoot his work, although French production would be responsible of the film. It represents a unique story, as always in the director, a young man who makes his living by linking with ichthyological business, suddenly receives the call of his beloved uncle to be best man at his wedding; accepting reluctantly, he moves to where his uncle lives, founding in his way, an Arizona trip, a unique woman and her daughter, women who will provide peculiar experiences. A film that feels from the outset, actually different from what until then had produced the bad boy from Balkans, markedly different, and in all aspects, perhaps the cause of the picture being detected as the weakest and less concise to that point. However, the film must be assessed or appreciated starting from the context, from the circumstances, some of which were mentioned above.

                  

The film begins with a dedication by the director to his father, after which we are presented with the first image of the film, men who are around an igloo, and then appreciate the difficult existence in icy lands, an individual has problems in the fragile ice with his sled of wolf dogs. A pink balloon then takes us from the ice to the city, from the city to the protagonist, Axel Blackmar (Johnny Depp). You can feel all that is different in this film to all prior to Kusturica from the beginning, when we appreciate the obvious credits in English, but also with music, feeling it distant from his previous openings, an obvious difference considering that in his previous three films, the music was almost always intimately close to the land where everything is taking place. And so, as stated, albeit rather obvious, the film immediately reflects its distinction to the previous works of the director, its essence is perceived completely alien to those works, we feel Kusturica is not in his natural habitat anymore, we can feel that all resources and guidelines present before, have lost their strength, their effectiveness. The filmmaker has been removed, has lost its roots, the fish is out of water, strength and power of his portraits, among other things, have been attenuated, embodied this in the fact that it is not only his first picture shot out of Bosnia, but also the first one located outside the Balkans, in the Mediterranean world. Now, torn from its roots, the music for his film feels as well close to another culture, the United States, besides the early nod to one of its icons, Arnold Schwarzenegger; it is completely evident that this is another culture, another essence, and seems Kusturica does not even think to hide or disguise it in any way.

The tribute to the United States will continue almost uninterruptedly, paying tribute the aspiring actor, Paul Leger (Vincent Gallo), constantly to older acting luminaries in America, such as Al Pacino, the titan Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro as well, with that singular sequence honoring Raging Bull, and even a tribute to North by Northwest, of the american stage from prodigious master Alfred Hitchcock, or a nice nod to the classic giant masterpiece The Godfather II; the picture imbues thus completely in the American acting firmament, a detail that has Kusturica for his eventual hosts. It feels, however, that the film is in fact more innocuous than at other times, it has lost its corrosive power -for good or bad, depending how you look-; although the present comedy is not childish, much less, we notice the decrease in mordacity, as if his figures and what they represent would have lost some sharpness, even his strength as a creator of images, which of course does not go away completely at all, feels it stopped, did not continue with that spectacular progression observed particularly intensely in Time of the Gypsies (1988). It feels like a poet content, bounded, circumscribed and limited by the unfortunate external circumstances of internal, civil war, a war that broke out in Bosnia and made impossible to maintain a normal film production. You must understand first of all that circumstance as one of the capital causes of this film and its peculiarities.

We feel warm hints of expertise and mastery in handling the camera that Kusturica had reached with tracking shots crossing certain scenarios, like the cousins having dinner with their host women, with lens  subtly sliding by location, showing its ease; but again, being nothing more than a warm halo of what had been achieved so far by the director. And very unfortunately, once envisioned the first half hour of the film, it is not difficult to realize that, compared with all the strength and goodness of the previous pictures of the Bosnian -especially of Time of the Gypsies, with which so many summits were achieved-, this work feels like a terrible jam, like a quagmire. Kusturica, outside their natural environment, is inevitably perceived stagnant in his actions, in his language, in conveying his visual language; civil war in his homeland expelled him from there, it is therefore this vicissitude in American lands an unnatural event in his growth, in his art-training, is something forced, not voluntary, not his genuine evolutionary path, so that the film should not be torned by the viewer; it is indeed a shame what happened, but this should help you understand why many things are present on the picture. Despite the ballast mentioned, his constants, his seals, are still there, kept the estrangement, the relative madness, typical of his visions, and the aforementioned sequence dinner for four is an example, madness, debauchery and absurdity are raised and displayed by Kusturica with his usual closeness and simplicity, is that the master director could not be turned off completely, much less, to a possible pitfall.

There is something in Kusturica that escapes any external agent, to any circumstance or situation beyond his creative elan, and that is his powerful capacity as creator of images, as audiovisual poet, and yes, much of that we will appreciate in the picture. Grace (Lili Taylor), the mature female beast that devours young fellows, wants to fly, demonstrating the absurd attempts of the lovers with various primitive contraptions to take off, in the style of Leonardo, with apologies to the Renaissance genius. Also, the fish will be one of the elements, one of the symbols, the most powerful of all in the film, having been presented soon by Axel almost like an alter ego of his, we know he carries out at the very singular occupation to monitor the fish, he even applies them minimal electric shock, and he tells us how, seeing the fish's eyes, he looks almost to himself; singular parallel that makes us then surreally see a fish "swimming" in the air, the skies to stroll casually by more than one location of the film. He has an intimate bond with the fish, he, like the fish, cuts through all that we see, is the protagonist, the vehicle through which we will travel through the story. The fish, like him, travels and roams this strange universe, around sky in the snow, around the sunset of a desert, between cactus and sand, around the city, around the vehicles-sale business, across the night sky when Elaine dies. It is certainly an allegory of Axel and his own experiences, it is displayed whenever a significant event occurs, something happens to permanently change Axel, to change him, the one who feels a strange bond with the fish, and those aquatic eyes, that would not arouse greater feelings in a common person. At the same time, it is a unique variation of the animal element, always present and loaded with true meaning in the Bosnian films.

We will see our protagonists with a turtle, eating at the table, the filmmaker does not lose, of course, all his ability to create some of his figures, some of the images printed in the screen, and thus we see the tortoise walking down the table, between the candles and food. Also a sketch of alienation, with Faye Dunaway playing the accordion while Axel walks peculiarly demented imitating a hen; necessarily an aura is perceived which indicates that, regardless of everything, this is a film of Emir Kusturica. This accordion is one of the few physical elements that have survived the severe split of this creation over previous works; and thais is because, of course, some of his bizarre style remains, some of his mystique, and oddly it may sound, the feature is strange, but not strange in the manner of Kusturica, but strange to be an unusual and rare blend of their perennial seals and guidelines, but now adapting those to an environment, culture and essence completely new to the creator. Normal is it gives, there are elements that have stayed in his land, along with part of the force that Kusturica is capable of printing to picture, a story set in the land where he grew up, the land he breathes. Now, gone that environment, also are gone their powerful human portraits, portraits of an entire generation, of an entire country; all the strength that emanated from the conciseness of these constructs, is now, predictably and normal, absent, or at least very considerably reduced.

The dream like, surreal element will be present again in Kusturica's films, readily observing the dream of Axel, in the desert, a long and endless line of vehicles placed at high altitude; while we know that an ancestor of his had the dream of "stack" the cars and thereby get to the moon. A warm symbolism of this dream, now almost imposed to the descendant, whom is slightly less than required and immersed in that situation, becoming a car seller. Something to take into account, considering that this is the story of a young man who was disillusioned of someone of his childhood, who does not want to follow his steps, however he will, and on the way will discover some of his own feelings. In the dream like, magic field, we also have the image of the ambulance, the ambulance that magically fly with uncle Leo's body to reach the moon, and his dream; a nice image and metaphor, which, however, languishes at his relative solitude in the middle of a picture in which the many limitations and restrictions must have felt Kusturica are perceived. Elaine levites, naturally floats sitting in a chair; surrealism does not disappear completely, that would be unthinkable in Emir, who speaks again with greater force through these dream sequences where his genius can spring freely, unfettered by conventions. And, despite all of the above, Kusturica always seems to get away with his goal; his label, his personal imprint, still are there despite everything mentioned, and that is remarkable, is what ultimately ends up imposing on the film.

The cohesion of both worlds, the real, concrete world, and the dreamlike, surreal world, although correctly set, will not work as effectively or as powerfully as before, and I don`t find the performances particularly laudable, except perhaps a Faye Dunaway that brings some freshness as the daughter of the young devouring mother, and Jerry Lewis, uncle Leo, who with his experience builds a relatively attractive character. Many of the hitherto unshakable constants is Emir Kusturica will be broken. No longer we observe a child or adolescent being the protagonist, this time as a young man, a young adult who is the protagonist; now we are no longer presented a genuine and close portrait of his land or his people in their native environment; now the romance is bifurcated to materialize in a mother and daughter, are dissimilar from one another, but both presents in the path of Axel. The characters have also weakened, not so sharply delineated as before, without the roots -in largely due to the natural Balkan environment- that previously made them so effective portraits of a whole nation; all presented with a musical accompaniment that also seemed divided between two worlds that reconciles. The film ends with the initial figure, that pink balloon that is floating and transports us, as we see similar to the initial image, men on the ice with his wolves. In addition, as said, it is a feature that breaks with the dynamic that led Kusturica; some say that to understand a genius we need sometimes to look at his weakest, not his masterpieces works. And there we have him, expelled from his native Bosnia, far from Sarajevo, dam of circumstances, making films in Hollywood, the worst that can happen to a filmmaker who makes true art; and there you see him, resisting, imposing his seal, naturally influenced, stained by circumstances, but resisting, because the film never stops feeling, however, a work of the author. Singular tape from Kusturica, to be looked with due care.

Time of the Gypsys (1988) - Emir Kusturica

Third feature by Bosnian, or Yugoslav for some, Kusturica, certainly a huge work, in which his growth as a filmmaker, as an artist in the Balkan filmmaker, is simply brutal. Kusturica had already pointed very good manners in his previous works: in both Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981), his debut, and When father was away on business (1985), his second work, had generated a remarkable consistency, a very recognizable unity in his work; he produced a solid diptych which embodied the reality of his native Sarajevo, in addition to outlining a narrative and aesthetic elements that felt, although significant and remarkable, still embryonic. The evolutionary leap that gives Kusturica for his third work is, as stated, a brutal action, such as giving a definitive hit to the table, in one single movement the filmmaker gets to some really huge evolutionary leaps in his visual language and technical staging. I have rarely seen a director take such a remarkable growth as creative leap, Kusturica almost reached its peak as a filmmaker, really early. Based on a script co-authored by Emir himself, he tells the story of a gypsy young fellow, a teenager, who, prisoner of circumstances, wanting to improve the deteriorated health of his sister, travels with her to Italy, where a powerful mobster will enter him into underground, underworld and prostitution, having fatal consequences. A powerful feature from many points of view, the best of what Eastern European film production has provided in recent decades.


            

The evolution of Kusturica is so shockingly evident that from the beginning, with that great opening shot sequence to start the film, he seemed to have reached more achievements than in his previous works together, at least narratively and perhaps aesthetically. So rich and powerful it is that initial sequence, as vigorous as eloquent introduction letter, that brings to mind pictures that have also used this resource, a large sequence shot opening, plotting the film, while outlining the characters, presenting them to the viewer; just to give an example, I remember The Godfather I and II, the reader will probably recognize many other examples of the use of this very effective narrative and expressive technique also. Framed in this broad and resolute display of audiovisual expression, we have the sketch, the painting, the image, the picture the director wants to convey, in which we see not only images but also realities. The most endearing character, and after seeing some wife shattered by drunken groom, becomes the mustachioed gambler, uncle Merdzan (Husnija Hasimovic) with his group of poker players, and the camera focuses them, then show us on a long and delicious traveling, animals, ducks, pigs, sheep, puddles, mud, fog; the miserable and poor living environment portrayed and where the wedding takes place; the usual proximity, folklore that had already noticed in previous films of the Balkan director is back here.

The camera follows the pacing environment, the frustrated wedding, showing all its characters, and being the obvious standard that sort of madman who speaks directly, talks to us about his ethnicity, his people, gypsies and his appear to be damned lineage, sharing a story of how Gypsies and God, from the beginning, never understood, that he is not to blame for the way he is; it is a sharp cry of Gypsies self introduction by the director. This self-portrait continues, combined with the well known Emir’s corrosive humor, the mustachioed gambler, who speaks with God, impotent, calls to get some recognition, something for him and his people, only getting silence and failure for what he asks, better luck in gambling. Continuing, one of the areas where growth is seen particularly sharp and clear in Kusturica, is the operation of the camera, the way it operates, the most supreme freedom that seems to have acquired, an unprecedented ease, Kusturica is getting a truly remarkable and almost overwhelming dominance with the camera with this, his third feature only. Follow collaboration with his hitherto unique cameraman, loyal and efficient Vilko Filac, and together make up this magnificent movie work in which the camera comes and goes freely, with determination slides following the protagonists to expressive angles, where it feels the enthusiasm of a young filmmaker, and where you feel a strong and self-possessed camera on display. Freedom of the camera achieved by the director of the Balkans is one of several vital surprises of this film. That severe evolution is also evidenced with some clever tricks, noticing Perhan (Davor Dujmovic), teaching Azra (Sinolicka Trpkova) how lime is prepared, performing a travelling that attests to the expertise reached by Kusturica, and in what we realise, importantly, that the filmmaker seems to have fun creating his art.

Also, something remarkable becomes the soundtrack, mostly of gypsy origin, also of folk, close to the people and their customs, their origins, something very typical of the filmmaker. That music, added to a more-than-correct camera work, ends up generating the halo of omnipresence in certain moments, and that huge dream-halo in others, with the camera and its movements "entering" the surreal action represented. That musical parsimony, composed of genuine parts of gypsy localities reach moments of diverse nature, festive, or regret, as when Perhan is separated from his sister. It will always be an element to sum up in representing a situation or convey an emotion. Efficient tools to portray a world full of pathos, pathos very near where the son Merdza complains to his mother Khaditza (Ljubica Adzovic) who flatters his teenage nephew, her grandson, with a turkey, instead of presenting something to him, a clod gambler, and good for nothing fellow. The guy ends up forcing sex to his nephew's girlfriend, he is a boor; Grandma is important in the film, being a link between his grandson and the memories of his mother, and the last link of Perhan with his initial and unrecoverable world. Also, an inescapable element of the film, and the whole oeuvre until this work of Kusturica, is the perennial inclination or mention of Italy, considered in his first two films as a distant reality to his entire environment, as something far away, an external exhaust point as a kind of escape. But it is an escape never achieved, only glimpsed, only desired; it is never achieved as finally seen in this picture.

So close is the link with Italy that it does not seem unreasonable to suggest a very close staging treatment, between the sequence in which Perhan leaves his country to go to the mafia, and the famous neorealism-sequence with Anna Magnani running behind a truck in Rome, Open City (1945) by Roberto Rossellini. In my view, no doubt that Kusturica appreciated that feature, and knew to perceive the force that gave off that immortal neorealist sequence, somehow assuming those guidelines; thus you will appreciate the shot sequence while trembling camera onboard the vehicle, shows the exciting journey full of intense feeling and regret at the departure; and instead of Magnani, we see the locals rushing to bid farewell the young. And finally in Italy the characters, director also plotted the mafia eloquently presenting the mobster almost as a Vito Corleone, perhaps no accident in another nod to the Latin culture, the Mediterranean world, as we look the italic country again as the undeniable center of a so desired liberty, the point of escape, exit, escaping that world, devourer of our protagonists. We will see the negligible subject around distributing money to almost commoners, who pay homage and beg his favors; he is the epiphanic element of the film, he is the one who will mark a before and after in the life of Perhan, and on the picture. Ahmed breaks in the boy's life and changes his routine life in the countryside and the Balkan misery, by the hectic world of Western prostitution in Italy; and what is more, given the sudden physical deterioration generated in Ahmed, the young man gets at the head of operations, his humanity is transformed, decomposes, becomes rottenn, it is a journey from which Perhan will never return from.

The wedding sequence is one of the main seals of the director, always prints so much at weddings scenes, there is always plenty to transmit, the director outlines and presents so much through those scenes, in many films; however, this is the first time in Kusturica that a sequence with such a significant, expressive and narrative load is presented as opening sequence of the film. We have already gotten the characters diagrammed, and even more importantly, their origin, their feelings, both of the characters and of the same filmmaker, all so dyed and flavored with that delicious humor of his: a voluminous fiancee scolds his totally drunken still groom; a man practicing pseudo martial arts while inside a house the intentions of marriage by the young protagonist are strongly discussed; the young, helpless and impotent after being rejected because of his bastard origins by his beloved's mother, tries to commit suicide by hanging himself, only to torn the church bells; the portrayed image of the land by Kusturica does not stop, the old women arguing with singular fervor regarding the young Perhan deflowering the beautiful Azra; to his overwhelmingly shrieking and scandalous woman, an individual throws down his cigarette, smoke puffs but not by mouth but by the ears, delirious situation after which, to get rid of the loud torture, the man hangs his wife on a peg, not guaranteeing this to stop the rant. The humor, the comic charge of the filmmaker retains its seal, corrosive and realistic, he caricatures their portrayed fellows, and sometimes more than one even qualify that as exaggeration.

Another wedding will take place, but this time the snow falls incessantly, as allegory to the fall, the ruin that has taken place in our protagonist. In the same way, there is a sequence of the final party, again with a wedding background, in which the group merriment is replaced by the deranged Perhan, who unleashes his fury and wipes out, among others, the one he defines was once his father and God; disappointed and seeing the reality of the machiavellian and false savior, he killed him with her telekinetic powers. Again we see a quirk of Kusturica common to all his oeuvre, and that is his well known metaphysical element: hypnotism first (Do you remember ...), sleepwalking later (When Father Was Away on Business), telekinesis now, it is therefore an inevitable element and indivisible part of the work of Bosnian, configuring, with elements like that, his realistic and magical fantasy at a time, always portrayed with ease and simplicity. Kusturica also always endues his works with a link with the animals, each time with a relative symbolic, significant load. This time the animal element is embodied with pet turkey, which dies, dies like the rabbit in Do you remember ... and like at that time, the animal's death denotes the end of a stage, the end of the innocence, and in this work, the pet animal will continue letting its presence be noticed, like the sequence with the ethereal final presentation of the bird at the time of expiration of the master.

A breaking point in the film (and in Perhan) is when Danira (Elvira Sali), his sister, is admitted to hospital, she is desperately screaming for her brother not to leave her, and him, dam of impotence, is breaking, it is crumbling inside, something is changing, while the caramel apples fall the ground; his sister is the origin of everything, the source from which came the situation that will end in his destruction, and is in that first moment of helplessness where begins to consummate his decline. The final moment where Perhan's humanity is irreversibly decomposed comes when he meets with his beloved muse, finding her pregnant, apparently he lost its dignity and quality of immaculate; she and her apparent sinking represent another point of no return for Perhan, a little more of him is broken, and there is no going back. The height of this pathos, this decay is masterfully captured by Kusturica in the dance sequence, with Perhan drunk in a shady setting in which we can feel his throbbing pain, we can almost feel that pain after finding his beloved pregnant, his soul all shattering while hiding behind a false happiness, drinking, dancing, getting drunk, laughing on the outside, crying on the inside; an almost ritualistic sequence portrays suffering and pathos with a sensitivity and contrast force seldomly seen, as we know all the misery that is going through, while dancing with distorted face, while spraying a beer all over a  woman while violins speak to us regarding his pain.

The cinema of Kusturica generates sensations in which at times we feel the film, his film has no limits, we appreciate his movies to the fullest, and incredibly, knowing what would later be able to produce the Bosnian, we know that is not this artistic ceiling. The possibilities are exploited tremendously, dreamlike ones particularly, and as usual in a film of this nature, those sequences are the ideal space, the free highway for the filmmaker expresses full liberty, to transgress the words, linearity. In this present case, Perhan's first dream, aquatic irruption, with a community apparently living in that surreal lagoon, shows the power of the director, that is definitely the strongest display of Emir's evolution as audiovisual poet. All of his power, folk, simple, beautiful and profound music that accompanies those slow and pervasive tracking shots through the waters, people floating, sinking, fire also floating among them, generates a visual sequence that transports us to a paradise, is his dream ethereal environment, his dream is almost sacred. The then still young Kusturica shows his art in all its splendor, fresh cinema, innovative, self-assured, powerful and eloquent, aesthetically unprecedented, reaching abrupt and early the highest levels of cinema, art, a true, contemporary master filmmaker was taking his definitive steps on the international stage. The next dream sequence by the Balkan comes to incarnate this time in the character of the deceased mother. And again we feel the film without limits, this time in a more sublime way, surrealist mother across the sky like a sylph, smiling at her daughter as she and her brother set off on this journey there will be no return.

The third dream sequence is also very powerful, the dead pet turkey gives access to a rural world, Perhan plays the accordion, his grandmother let him know of his longing, and all-consuming fire, a local square, an italian piazza burns,  as well as the house that was pending on heaven, the house that Merdzan had lifted, perhaps symbolizing that all that Perhan had abandoned is no longer there, has been destroyed, consumed, as it has had burned in flames. Perhan has been degraded, has lost its soul, wants to sell the child Azra carries in her womb, a child who is not known for sure if it's his, but what we do know is that Perhan's is already another human being, he has changed, and a lot. For the third time in a row, Kusturica choses as protagonist and leading edge of the picture a young fellow, Perhad in this case will be our vehicle to run in the feature, and in him we see a remarkable change, from a physical variation, losing his unique-looking glasses, to inner change, which is the most traumatic and unrecoverable; after so much helplessness and humiliation, he lost his innocence, his faith in humanity, and finally his life itself. The sequence of Azra in childbirth work is the core of the fourth dreamlike sequence, perhaps the most beautiful: the girl, after leaving a trail of her white veil, loses that element, appears lying in the field, magically levitates under the night sky. Everything revolves around her rapidly, the new creature comes into the world, the ethereal music returns to flow, setting the beautiful and sad sequence which will be closed with an impotent Perhan hugging and kissing his lifeless wife.



       

Realism and fantasy meet in Kusturica's films, this is one of his constants, one of his major labels, one of the resources that best uses the filmmaker to express his world, and it is not surprising that more than one calls or tittles his film works into a stream apparently known as magical realism. Fair to some extent coined the term, considering the strong realistic load of the situations portrayed, always close and always realistically Kusturica portrays his context and land; but that undeniable realistic imprint, goes hand on hand with other movement that has no less force than the first one, and that is the surreal dreamlike field that merges with reality as an indivisible braid. Both worlds walk together in the cinema of the Bosnian, and although the term and complete justice or accuracy of it with his art may be questionable or debatable, it is not the fact that the filmmaker makes both sides, supposed to be antagonists, come together, therein lies one of the many causes of brilliance Balkan director. As mentioned, this will add to his already known and very particular sense of humor, increasingly scathing, more effective, more bizarre than ever. Among the figures created in the film, we see the red candied apples with intense colour that appear in quite significant moments. These sweetened fruits give Perhad farewell to his hometown, and also receive him back, are present at his funeral. They let go an innocent boy, to receive the body of a decadent and spoiled version of the same individual.

Another element where are extraordinarily combined reality with dreamlike, symbolism with reality, it is when Merdzan literally lifts up the house of his mother. The despicable and abject subject, not having money to pay bills betting, tries to blackmail his mother, raising the house using a vehicle; the house is flying literally, hanging by a rope while the tormented but measured grandmother reads a story to the sobbing granddaughter, to set up another of the figures of greater strength and vitality of the director in his film. Kusturica has already became a visual poet, is already a schoolmaster to express himself through images, sounds, adding to beautiful shots and frames, sensitive music, close to what it portrays, and breathes his sensitivity, his keenness to represent and convey emotions like few in today's cinema can. Kusturica reaches new levels in his art, the cohesion and the unity and coherence with previous pictures are not lost, they are multiplied by all the developments achieved in only the third feature from director, attesting such a rapid and impressive evolution, reaching a level of unparalleled contemporary cinema to the overwhelming majority of filmmakers. Winning film awards, among others, the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the film has extensive repertoire to be discussed, repeating the young Davor Dujmovic as an actor, Kusturica gives us his to that point, 1988, definitely greater movie work, more accomplished and ambitious, the most powerful and beautiful, leaving the path paved and ready for what would become his masterpieces ground. Emir is making strides.