Fruto do Paraíso

Vera Chytilova's Fruit Of Paradise, is a lost masterpiece of a film. Lost because Chytilova was not permitted to make any films for decades, after her first film Daisies(another gem), was censored and banned by the Soviet/Czech government. These films show us a new language in cinema, that never got to develop. Her use of sound alone in this film puts her on par with Godard and Leone, her use of color is unlike anything I have ever seen(the first 10 minutes in Eden are a luminous collage of images, patterns, and live actors), and her sense of story(arguably her least accessible trait) is like Bunuel or Svankmajor(her fellow Czech), albeit with a distinctly feminist, whimsicle, slapstick bent.

The story is an allegory of Adam and Eve, in a modern(made in 60's) Health Retreat. The action involves our heroin wandering the grounds where she becomes obsessed with a mysterious man in red, who may or may not be a killer. What follows is a fragmented story of awakening, it's pains and pleasures, but don't look more literally than that, like Lynch's Inland Empire, it's best to view this film topologically(on the surface), as an aesthetic object like a painting, rather than a cinematic tool for conveying a "message". Not that you cant or shouldn't get anything more out of this film, than a lesson in the expansive possibilities of film-making itself, but you get out of it, what you put into it. If you want to just watch the pretty colors, it's got that, if you want to argue about "ontological freedom and meaning", you could use this film as a trampoline, but that role rests here on the viewer.

Chytilova's film's however cannot be accurately described by text, they have to be viewed, listened to puzzled over, drank with(a glass or two of wine), and then viewed again. If your looking for a novel experience in a sea of modern cinematic redundancy, the Fruit Of Paradise, is the food for you. If you want to watch realistic characters, exchange in pseudo-naturalistic dialoge about modern issues of social import, "Crash" can be found at your local blockbuster, if you've watched Maya Deren, Luis Bunuel, or Kenneth Anger, and said, why can't there be more films like this; then Netflix, steal, beg, borrow,(or try your local library), but find this film. That goes double for Chytilova's first film Daisies, which is as adventurous as this, but is more slapstick to this films baroque; basically a lot more fun.

OK, Věra Chytilová's "Ovoce stromů rajských jíme" ("Fruit of Paradise" in English) is one of the single WEIRDEST movies that I've ever seen. I understand that it's based on the story of Adam and Eve and transposed to a health spa, but I swear that there was no identifiable plot. Maybe the director (a doyenne of the Czech New Wave) was trying to be philosophical, but I couldn't see that the movie was trying to say anything. As far as I could tell, it was a wasted effort.

Trivia: Barrandov Studios, where they filmed "Fruit of Paradise", was also the set of "Amadeus", "Mission: Impossible", "A Knight's Tale" and "Snowpiercer", among other movies.

"You want to kill me now that I love you?"

An avant-garde film from Vera Chytilová that is visually stunning and narratively challenging. It obviously relates to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, as we get psychedelic imagery in an explosion of colors that tell us the Biblical story in the first nine and a half minutes, and I think, specifically, the loss of innocence based on fateful decisions about adultery. I know Chytilová resisted being called a feminist, but I also see feminism here in how she contorted the meaning of the parable from Genesis.

The story which follows the intro is a love triangle between a young woman, Eva (Jitka Nováková), her husband Josef (Karel Novák), and a mysterious man in red velvet, Robert (Jan Schmid), who almost pees on her accidentally when he first meets her. Eva is aware that her husband is cheating on her when he's secretive about letters he's received from other women, and in an important moment, asks him "do you think you'll tell me the truth some day?" to which he just laughs. Meanwhile, she's intrigued while watching Robert cavort with a variety of other women. Fully tempted, she chases after Robert but beguilingly, he doesn't give in to her initially, and the crisis builds over the course of the film. (Let's just forget about a third man, the waiter from the café she flirts with, which is another sign of her awakened agency and sexuality).

Aside from the beautiful imagery, trying to decode the film is part of the experience. When Eva ends up in Robert's apartment, for example, she discovers evidence that he might be a serial killer, at least if taken literally. Personally I thought it was a reference to him being a lady killer, e.g. "killing" someone through sexual conquest, playing with their heart and leaving them, stripping away a layer of purity and innocence in the process. When she asks him to "kill" her on that little rowboat, the gorgeous light on the water rippling hypnotically in the background, I think this is the sense of it, but I'm sure there are other interpretations.

The Eve in this story is one whose tree of knowledge seems to be that of sexual freedom, in particular because her husband has already played around. The relationship she has with Robert is more than just a fling, however, and their slow circling on the barren ground, tossing the gun back and forth while contemplating love and trust, reminded me of Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love. Her husband is then shocked when he sees what she's done and she tells him "Don't ask for the truth" repeatedly, an interesting play on the Lord's requirement about the tree of knowledge, and then she says "Just as I refuse to ask for it, too," reflecting her own willful blind eye. Through religious inspired music, the soundtrack then soars to deliver the words from Genesis, which seem to mean something so different in this context. While Eva has sinned, she certainly wasn't the first, and is surrounded by an adulterous husband and a libertine lover.

It's a fascinating film, one that took some thinking about and rewatching to fully appreciate, and still had me puzzling as I tried to cobble together a review. Regardless, it's strongest in its final half hour, as scenes like the one with the members of the spa bouncing the ball up into the air and chasing after it went in the middle of the film were too long and felt a little pretentious - so if you find it a little tough going, my advice is to stick with it.

If you enjoy watching a mercurial, concupiscent woman-child scamper about, this is the film for you. And I'm not just talking to Bjork fans.

At times it was like watching a ballet without the dancing, although there were moves on display. Very much Free Love kind of moves. I would say this would be a great film for a band to project while playing some trippy music, but then the audience would miss Zdenek Liska's score (although the drums in the attic scene would be a hit for rawk concerteers).

As pointed out by another reviewer (and the three posted so far all fit with my experience), the first 15 minutes are the most obscure and camera crazy. I wonder if director Vera Chytilova figured censors would get a headache, or have to send in reports to their superiors within 15 minutes and give up? Even then as the story is revealed, it challenges deciphering. Well at least in the year 2014 here in the States. I can see the trend of white (purity) to red (trouble/communism) to black (death), and there is a dresser that is just a fake front, so that too can be seen maybe as some Pop Art reverse AgitProp. I have to say these thoughts never rose up directly while watching it.

For first time Czech checkers, I'd start with "Daisies" first, but I need to figure out what to watch next. I like the raw exuberant art here even if Chytilova felt walled off from her occupied and getting wasted teenage motherland.

Fruit of Paradise does a fantastic job living up to its energetic predecessor, Daisies, and belongs to the same delirious family of Arthouse Cinema as the works of Jan Svankmajer, the Brothers Quay, Maya Deren, and I'll even go out on a limb and say Dave McKean. The narrative pursues the loose interactions and activities of Eva, her husband Josef, and Mr. Robert- all of whom are in residence at a pastoral health spa. The film draws immediate and overt parallels to the story of Adam and Eve and their temptation in the Garden in addition to other more thematic and symbolic parallels with old fairy tales like Bluebeard and Little Red Riding Hood. Approach this film knowing that the art lies in the Cinesthesiac fusion of image, motion, music, and concept. The narrative exists in service to that.