Der Steppenwolf

Allmovie: “Any film that cites Sigmund Freud, Max Ernst, Luis Bunuel, and the Marquis de Sade as cardinal influences clearly is not standard mall movie fare. In Conspirators of Pleasure, Jan Svankmajer has created a film that is thoroughly surreal in the truest sense of the term.”

Quién puede resistirse a ver una película descrita de tal forma? (sabiendo que uno de los directores que más admiro es a Luis Buñuel…

Nada mejor que la descripción de la historia dada por MovieMartyr:

Conspirators follows about a half-dozen people as they elaborately and secretly plan out their fetishistic sex rituals. None of the sex acts are really erotic or plausible enough to make the audience feel the director is singling them out or expecting them to be titillated, but there is, for the audience, a real sense of identification with the alienation these characters’ desires cause. The participants are never shown discussing their needs (which are literally hidden “in the closet”), but there are some knowing glances between characters exchanged suggesting a mutual understanding. Like the hero of Before Night Falls their sexual deviancy is nearly a form of political rebellion, and unifies them in the face of their society’s oppression. The film is also smart enough to suggest sexual desire is malleable and fetishes aren’t as distinctly ours as we might think they are. That it’s able to convey so much about sexuality and perversity with a minimum amount of either nudity or erotic charge is impressive, though one might wish these acts, which are obviously hugely enjoyable for their perpetrators, might be more fun for us. They’re certainly funny and odd, but we’re always looking at them from an outsider’s perspective.

Como es probable… no es la película que todos quisieran ver el día siguiente a la navidad… pero por favor…Forget magic realism; this is magic surrealism, of the highest order.(más información aquí)

Más información:

The Surrealist Conspirator: An Interview With Jan Svankmajer

Noodles up the nose, murdered dolls, toe-sucking fish — these are the hallmarks of Prague’s zaniest surrealist!

*****
Como alguien reprochaba alguna vez…
X: Y a ud por qué le gusta el surrealismo? deberían gustarle más bien películas como Sideways con las que me identifico porque muestran lo sencilla que es la vida.. disfrutándola en las cosas simples… como tomar una botella de colección en un local de hamburguesas…

mientras tanto pensaba… ajá.. si.. cosas sencillas… siga pensando como va a comprarse el bolso Louis Vuitton que con la mirada casi le arranca a otra mujer el otro día en el centro comercial… cosas sencillas… no me vengan con esos cuentos tan maric…

Ray Milland ganaría el premio de la academia por su representación como Don Birnam, un escritor alcohólico a punto del suicidio en The Lost Weekend, película de Billy Wilder, quien a su vez ganaría el Oscar como mejor director. Esta es una de las primeras películas que trata el tema del alcoholismo en hollywood… (tema recurrente que ha permitido grandes representaciones tal como muchos años después lo demostró Nicholas Cage en Leaving Las Vegas)

Un guión brillante acompañado de una actuación brillante… segmentos como el siguiente muestran con claridad el sentir de un alcóholico…(Tomado de Aquí)

DON : Don’t talk like a child. You can’t cut it short! You’re on that merry-go-round and you’ve got to ride it all the way, round and round, till the blasted music wears itself out and the thing dies down and clunks to a stop.
NAT : Hey, how about you eatin’ some of this?
DON : Take it away.
NAT : You gotta eat somethin’ sometime.
DON : Just give me another drink.
NAT : Mr. Birnam, this is the mornin’.
DON : That’s when you need it most, in the morning. Haven’t you learned that yet? At night, this stuff’s a drink. In the morning, it’s medicine.

NAT : Okay if I eat?
DON : A little to one side. Nat, are you ever scared when you wake up? So scared the sweat starts out of ya, huh? No, no you. With you it’s simple. Your alarm clock goes off and you open your eyes and brush your teeth and read the Daily Mirror. That’s all. Do you ever lie in you bed looking at the window? A little daylight’s coming through, and you start to wonder: is it getting lighter, is it getting darker? Is it dawn or dusk? That’s a terrifying problem, Nat. Because if it’s dawn, you’re dead. The bars are closed and the liquor stores don’t open till nine o’clock, and you can’t last till nine o’clock. Or it maybe Sunday. That’s the worst. No liquor stores at all. And you guys wouldn’t open a bar, not until one o’clock. Why? Why, Nat?
NAT : Because we gotta go to church once in a while. That’s why.
DON : Yeah, when a guy needs it most.