O Fundo do Ar é Vermelho

I know that I am supposed to like this film. Unfortunately, as it is almost strictly for the political converts, I didn't.

It is basically a collection of unused film footage from the late 60s and early 70s, showing significant moments in the leftist revolution, and how they dropped the ball, i.e. a "grin" without a cat. Yawn! Watching home movies of a leftist movement that compromised itself out of existence is not very satisfying.

Film students may find appreciation of this work, but after watching Marker's most famous creation, "La Jetée", I expected more.

Despite the fact that it was reworked, it just didn't measure up to my expectations.

I saw the English-language version, so I missed out on the wonderful voices of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. Still, the film has provocative images (makes you think how difficult it really is to "make the revolution" in advanced capitalist countries) and my attention never flagged. But for someone who does not approach the film fully equipped with all of the political-cultural paraphernalia of the French left, the film is a bit bewildering. It's not at all clear what the director's point of view is, and this is unfortunate for a film that attempts to make sense of a relatively well-defined political phenomenon: the new left of 1968 and beyond. Is he simply trying to say that the movement strayed too far from its working class ally, and therefore was a superstructure without a base (hence, the title)? If so, the film is not organized in a sufficiently coherent way to bring that point home. And even so, one could hardly say that the French left really had a chance in '68 to "smash the bourgeois state," given that the violent instruments employed by the state to perpetuate in extremis the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"(the army and the police) never showed signs of cracking. And even if there had been a "revolutionary socialist breakthrough" in France, the country would have been crushed first by the economic sanctions imposed by the other capitalist countries (a la Chile) and then militarily (had the "revolutionary government" sought to align itself with the USSR). Very humorous interlude involving Fidel's obsessive massaging of microphones, but on the whole not very flattering towards him (but neither towards Guevara and Regis Debray, for that matter). Maybe I missed something, but I thought Georges Marchais (PCF) came off the best--judge for yourself.

This is Chris Marker's three hour elegy to the New Left and the contradictions that swept the world in 1967 and 68. Divided in two parts, Marker covers Vietnam, Che's death, May 68, Prague, Chile and much more, connecting these images with Marker's comments about the downfall of the New Left.

Each image is so powerful by itself. From a distorted Fidel giving a speech to a demonstration in Japan against a company that's poisoning the water. A true compilation of historical documents. It's three hours long, but it's worth it.

Although made when the period it covered had barely ended, Marker's doc is a superb, incisive film history of the short but eventful period of Third World Revolution and the New Left. He doesn't attempt to explore all the ideological, sectarian byways of the time, but to make us understand what it felt like, and why people involved believed so fervently that they were making history. He also shows us how it all came unraveled, thanks to domestic repression and political fakery in the developed countries and brutal intervention in the developing.

One of the final clips (if memory serves) is most telling: Salvador Allende, months before his violent overthrow, delivering an electrifying speech to Chilean factory workers, urging them to ... accept layoffs and pay cuts. That's what it came down to, unfortunately: a boxed-in socialist president, doing his opponents' dirty work even as they prepared to murder him.

Why Soderbergh? I just saw his marvelous, two-part "Che," and couldn't help but wonder if Marker's film was on his mind when he made it. Although a fiction film with actors, it also puts you close to the action and makes you feel what it was like to be taking part in 1) the momentous Cuban revolution and 2) the bitter failure of the Bolivian insurgency. Rise and fall, very much like the elation and then the dead-end that Marker gives us. Along the way, Soderbergh provides snapshots of his main character (now in black and white) giving speeches, interviews, explaining himself and his cause to American and UN audiences who couldn't be farther from the events Che was caught up in. The revolution is televised. Marker does the same thing with some of the footage he found, and interestingly, another Cuban revolutionary--Castro--was his charismatic star.

One fine filmmaker paying tribute to one of the medium's greatest, perhaps? But see "Grin Without a Cat," and ask yourself why so few directors have any notion of the medium's potential.

When he officially abandoned the New Wave, Godard said that he no longer wanted to make "political films" but instead wanted to "make films politically." In Grin Without a Cat, Chris Marker manages to do both by presenting a Weberian genealogical analysis of revolution, and in doing so creates a more perfect kind of documentary. Focusing on specific events and individuals in an overarching context, he attempts much more than most political documentaries. He doesn't ask the question "How was the revolution successful or unsuccessful?" (although this is addressed), but the main inquiry is instead "Where does revolution come from, and once it's here, what function does it serve?" The breadth of the film is incredible, chronicling popular revolts in France, Vietnam, Cuba, Prague, Chile, Bolivia, China and others, but as many who have seen the film note, it moves incredibly fluidly, and the time spent watching it never seems to drag. There is also no lack of the flair of style seen in Marker's most popular works, Sans Soleil and La Jetee. In short, anyone with an interest in the documentary form will tremendously enjoy this film, though it is a bit depressing. Like politics itself, there are no heroes presented, only victims, oppressors, and the idealistically misinformed.