Lemonade Joe (1964)

From http://1.fwcdn.pl/po/18/07/
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Director: Oldřich Lipský

Screenplay: Jiří Brdečka

Based on the novel and stage play by Jiří Brdečka

Cast: Karel Fiala as Lemonade Joe; Rudolf Deyl, Jr. as Doug Badman; Miloš Kopecký as Horace Badman/"Hogofogo"; Květa Fialová as Tornado Lou, the Arizona Warbler; Olga Schoberová as Winnifred Goodman; Bohuš Záhorský as Ezra Goodman

[Spoilers Throughout]

Synopsis: In the western town of Stetson City, Arizona, whiskey pours much to the sadness of teetotaller and Evangelist Ezra Goodman (Bohuš Záhorský) and his daughter Winnifred Goodman (Olga Schoberová), their religious abstinence campaign failing miserably. To their rescue, with his trademark Kolaloka lemonade his desired drink and perfect pistol aim, is Lemonade Joe who soon cleans the town up. Owner of the Trigger Whisky Saloon Doug Badman (Rudolf Deyl, Jr.) is not impressed by this, hiring the legendary outlaw Hogofogo, alias of his brother Horace Badman (Miloš Kopecký) to off Lemonade Joe.

With Czechoslovakian cinema - Czech and Slovakian alike - you will find the alchemist's stone of cinematic invention. Where even the genre films had the same craft as important dramatic works. Their history of stop motion both in stop motion and collage, is impeccable, and even the general style of their films from historical drama to science fiction is utterly unique. Cinema that is entirely unique and, even if more sporadic in release after the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, still produces such films. Theirs, before and after becoming separate countries, is barely scratched upon in terms of availability, allowing one to uncover hidden gems easily to the point of practically falling over them by accident. Take Lemonade Joe director Oldřich Lipský for example. You have, in one filmography, a Jules Verne adaptation (The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981)), Lemonade Joe, the comedy sci-fi film I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1969), and the truly bizarre Happy End (1966), a film told entirely backwards where a man goes from his execution for murder to birth as an utterly unreliable narrator.

Lemonade Joe itself if not the only western made behind the Iron Curtain. Not the only musical made behind it either. A comedy western musical influenced by silent cinema techniques however is a one-off. Its desire to both mock American capitalism, as Lemonade Joe is actually in the hands of the Kolaloka Lemonade he drinks as a spokesperson, is yet tempered by it being openly influenced by older American cinema. Singing cowboys were actually a subgenre at one-point in Hollywood, particularly with Gene Autry, a singer-songwriter/film star/television and radio star/business entrepreneur/rodeo performer. (Aptly too as Autry starred in the twelve chapter film serial The Phantom Empire (1935), a western/scif-fi hybrid where he ends up in a secret underground world of robots and subterranean people trying to invade the world above, which is as bizarre as it sounds). Before Canadian film maker Guy Maddin starting using silent film technqiues in stylised ways, and uncovering old genres to use for his own ends, Lemonade Joe takes an era of westerns even older than the fifties classics starring the likes of John Wayne few talk of. The colour tints are from all genres of silent cinema too. Blues usually for dark environments, yellow for outside or lit rooms. Speeding up the film. Images superimposed onto scenes, such as the Egyptian pyramids in the western mountains.

The artistry of older cinema - built having to use its resources in mind of limitations - fits the style of Czech cinema immensely, which has always had a craftwork above even some of the best of industries like Hollywood. Used in a sound film, this style is incredible idiosyncratic and allows for carte blanche in terms of what can be done. If there's a contradiction between paying tribute to this type of cinema and its jabs at America, think of it as admiration for the art turned into a custard pie to the face. Apt as Lemonade Joe is a living breathing cartoon right down to Joe and Hogofogo having a Tom and Jerry like relationship when the latter's introduced. The greyness to this satire, if there is any morality, is actually to the film's advantage, Lemonade Joe becoming as much a true hero as he is a parody. Eventually the heroes and villains become farcical targets as Kolaloka can even resurrect to dead, undermining the antagonism completely.

The performances are as energised and help in Lemonade Joe actually working, characters who are as broad as cartoons but with a tangibility to them so they are not hollow caricatures. Karel Fiala makes a great Lemonade Joe, the perfect blonde and even naive gunfighter with a violent aversion to alcohol and prone to bursting into song in accented English, helped by the fact he was a real life operatic tenor as well as an actor. His could've merely been a mockable character, but its testament to the film and Fiala's performance that the satire to do with his wholesome personality doesn't stop him being a lovable figure you want with Winnifred Goodman, even with showgirl Tornado Lou, the raven haired femme fatale whose lusty demeanour is actually melted by Joe's existence is her life.

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His mirror, played by a strong figure in Miloš Kopecký, is Hogofogo. A figure so evil he's charismatic and even gets his own songs, all of which are the best in the film. One lusting over how he loves to kill, but the other probably Lemonade Joe's best scene, an inexplicably serious and potent number which intercuts into an imagined version of Hogofogo's funeral, a full New Orleans mourner's parade with blues instrumentation. That its whilst dressed as an old man to kidnap Winnifred Goodman doesn't undercut the moment. The only sour point, and the only one in the whole film, is when Hogofogo abruptly appears in blackface, a pretty grotesque look as with black makeup on Kopecký does look like a horrible caricature, but it does feel less problematic than the film referencing old Hollywood films even if its troublesome to witness.

The music alongside the production design is where Lemonade Joe in its oddness. Breaking expectations of a stereotypical western where the heroic gunslinger can hit a fly out of the air than (in English) sing a love song rocking on a bar piano. The general absurdity manages to come off as wholesome even when it still has characters die, someone getting a corkscrew in the back, and is ultimately still a piss take on American culture. The fact that this is film made in a communist country emphasising that its American references are to be viewed as parodies of the country the other side of the Iron Curtain. That it is sweet and playful is, yet, also for the better. Cartoonish with exaggeration. Its silliness, taking the production seriously, allows it stand out more.

Abstract Spectrum: Surreal

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

An undiscovered gem in Czechoslovakian cinema. Again, how many musical cowboy films involving silent film techniques actually exist? That it feels like a fully gestated, fully accomplished production means that this enticing premise is even better as a result.

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Skullduggery (1983)

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Director: Ota Richter

Screenplay: Ota Richter and Peter Wittman

Cast: David Calderisi as the Sorcerer / Dr. Evel; Wendy Crewson as Barbara / Dorigen; Thom Haverstock as Adam; Pamela Boyd as the Queen; Jack Anthony as Mr. Sluszarczuk

[Spoilers Throughout]

Synopsis: In medieval times, an evil sorcerer curses an entire family tree. The latest descendant of that tree, Adam (Thom Haverstock), becomes a violent killer when a fantasy dungeon game awakens the curse within him. After that is entirely subjective to each viewer's opinion...

Out of the obscurest corner of the slasher film subgenre, Skullduggery boggles. What begins as a Dungeons and Dragons fear mongering ends with police officers taking pot shots at a living suit of armour, but that seems logical to what happens in-between. One of the worst amateur dramatic plays shown in cinema takes place in a lengthy talent show that goes on and on. A magician, never explained and merely the magician, appears and makes a woman's top flutter only to begin the curse proper in our lead Adam afterwards/ A man claims he can such through a bus exhaust pipe to chat up a woman, without realising the homoerotic qualities of that line. Details, after the medieval prologue done in two sets and period costumes, which are jarring in tone. The beginning of  Skullduggery's ability to pile on further strange details afterwards.

Like the man with a noughts and crosses game on his back. He appears near the beginning and throughout the film at various points, the game slowly being played by unseen forces offscreen. His constant appearance seems too precise to be accidental but why he is there is unknown. The players of the game are unknown and it feels vaguely Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978) in tone, broad humour so upfront it drops on the floor flat. Its surrealism is in the tone of the Zucker Brothers but played at such a sluggish tone the presentation is off. If it's funny weird, it's definitely weird. Inexplicable things appear too. During a scene of the killer chasing a woman cutting to a length, it cuts to a minute long panning shot of mourners at a funeral who never appear again. Or Liberace's stand-in in the church flailing away at organ through stained glass.

Is it even a comedy? Well Wacko (1982) came around this time, so already the slasher was mocking itself as the glut came to be into the early eighties. But the tone is sabotaged by its non-sequiturs. Unless its ingenious and subtle in a way I cannot understand, but that's part of the inexplicable nature of Skullduggery. When a hospital murder sequence includes a smoking gorilla doctor who has just had sex with a human nurse, God only knows where we are stil going. Where has this film even been? The reason behind the entire Canuxploitation moment of Canadian genre films can only offer of a slither of this film's existence; that as the economic benefits to produce countless movies in the region, director/co-writer Ota Richter was one of many allowed to depict whatever he wanted onscreen as long as he completed a film that could be released. Even to the point its questionable if this is technically a slasher in the first place. There are elaborate deaths, but when they are all illusions for psychic heart attacks, all with an evil harlequin puppet controlling Alex, we are lost further in the general barking madness between the large couple who suddenly appear in rabbit costumes and a woman being wrapped around in a large python.

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Takings its Dungeons and Dragons paranoia into mind is as much part of the strange stew. Its misguided on both ends of the argument about the Satanic panic hysteria of the eighties. To merely mock the conservative Christians who got caught up within it as, considering secularists forget that if they believe Satan is real, it's a terrifying idea that he'd corrupt your children if given the chance. To merely dismiss it as silly and ironically watch their numerous scare videos on the subject as, trying to attack heavy metal and D&D fans amongst others, they took Mary Whitehouse stupefaction and old/new generation divide into problematic territory by suppressing individuals' rights. Mazes and Monsters (1982), where young Tom Hanks went insane without a basketball named Wilson and because of fantasy role-playing, is the nadir (height?) of D&D paranoia in film. Here it's worth mentioning as it barely plays a part, which just adds to the perplexing nature of this creation. Tapping into the zeitgeist but except that Alex targets people based on the missions in the game. It adds to the inexplicable nature of Skullduggery where an evil harlequin doll is truly more evil than the fantasy game but the game is still bookending the plot, whatever it is, feeling like the template to disguise the excuse for general madness.

In general the structure is like that of many slasher films. Fundamentally and technically adequate. Basic with varying, wonky scales for acting quality. The dialogue, because of the nature of this beast, is a stand out for sucking through bus exhaust qualities or squirrels down peoples' trousers. The deaths are closer to A Nightmare on Elm Street but no way near as creative, merely supernatural. It doesn't even have any real gore or any actual nudity, going against the lurid strains of this subgenre. The film has, by its ending, Alex going to a Satanic party with the camera intercutting between two male dorks, a very busty woman between them ogled by the camera for a long time, inexplicable melting down to a skull, and a mysterious doorway that never is explained, alongside two cops named Holmes and Watson who are useless in a cringe worthy attempt at humour, just adding to the strangeness. It can be compared to Jackie Kong's Blood Diner (1987) is that wasn't an insult to Blood Diner. That's not to say Skullduggery was compelling entertainment, but this is the queerest of weird horrors to experience.

Abstract Spectrum: Psychotronic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

Personal Opinion:

From the bowls of slasher cinema, rewarding just for how compellingly weird it is. You don't come here unless you expect this weirdness, and you'd be sorely disappointed if you came for another Canadian slasher to put near those like My Bloody Valentine (1981).

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Container (2006)

Director: Lukas Moodysson

Screenplay: Lukas Moodysson

Cast: Jena Malone as The Voice; Peter Lorentzon as the Man; Mariha Åberg as the Woman

Synopsis: With voiceover by Jena Malone, Container follows a transgender man (Peter Lorentzon) whose life is a debris filled apartment ripped apart by his own thoughts. From the death of porn star Savannah to fear of the nuclear bomb, Container is an existential stream-of-consciousness where the voiceover, both his and separate as Malone's, connects together the images into a whole.

Container for the unprepared is an extreme film in structure. Difficult and liable to frustrate. In context of Lukas Moodysson's career it makes sense how his filmography got here however. His debut Show Me Love (1998) was an immense hit, a tale of adolescent love between two girls causing a wave of critical acclaim. Add Together (2000) and Moodysson even won the acclaim of his country's greater auteur Ingmar Bergman. For whatever reason however, this wave of acclaim was clearly a cause of an existential crisis. Lilya 4-ever (2002), whilst also acclaimed, also gained a lot of backlash for its perceived heavy-handedness, and thus the existential crisis began properly. Leading to the transgressive A Hole in My Heart (2004) and Container. Both of which gained negative reactions between them. With hindsight Container proved to be a necessity, Mammoth (2009) his small step back towards the mainstream, We Are the Best! (2013) about three young girls starting a punk band winning hearts all over again. And Container itself has a lot to say, deliberately the work of a filmmaker who is using it to dissect his own state of mind as much as its central character played by Peter Lorentzon. It says a lot that, within the documentary footage included with the DVD release, Moodysson has a psychiatrist, a Church of England vicar and a psychic see the film and/or the exhibition that came with it initially in England, and allowed them scrutinise his subconscious.

From https://blackiswhiteblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/
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I was aware  that this was never going to be easy to digest, which helped me be the perfect person to view the production as I was prepared for its notoriety. Container, with patience, is actually a good film. It will need repeat viewings. And particularly, whilst the monochromes images are important, it's the script and how Jena Malone reads them which stands out the most in terms of the production's virtues. A stream-of-consciousness, this structure is always difficult at first. A stream-of-consciousness eliminates the pauses and punctuation that allow one to ingest information in spoken and written speak clearly. It removes divides between one subject to another, allowing them to bleed into each other. Read aloud, whilst helping with the flow, also means you do not have the ability to re-read passages again for clarity unless you rewound the film back. The result, like William S. Burroughs at his most extreme in Naked Lunch, takes work at first to fully understand.

Whilst Malone at one point even explains herself as her real self, an actress merely reading lines despite playing actor Lorentzon's character, what you actually get is what can be viewed as the beginning of a 21st century existential fear. There is for myself the increasing thought that, when the Millennium took place and the world did not end, we as a society at least in the Western world entered this new century without purpose. Our narrator portrays both the transgendered man as much as a form of herself, the kind of twenty something Millennial who shifts onwards in the current state confused. Someone who fears their mortality constantly, yet feels they are God at other times. Considers God outside of themselves, yet are fixated on celebrities and topics Kylie Minogue cancer scare. Letters of Holocaust concentration camp victims are collected alongside porn star Savannah's boots, at first potentially tasteless unless viewed in the context of chaos of this century, that so much is to be digested these objects collect, clash and meld as one and the other. It varies between pathetic first world problems to real, sad moments of brevity, all of which I suspect is Moodysson himself bleeding out God knows what demons he had to purge at this period in his career.

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The visuals are as important. Squalor but never poverty pornography. Nudity, mass orgies and cramped apartments. Even that which could come off as weird and pretentious art performances in another film, such as anything with the dolls' heads and wearing objects as inappropriate dress, make sense in Container's logic, which is as much addressing this material world and scrutinising it as the words spoken by Malone's voiceover do. All the objects, from a Bing Cosby memorial plate to a dank mattress, become a psycho dramatic view of a life, which was enforced by that exhibition Moodysson created using the real props from the film that allowed people to scrutinise the objects in closer detail. The monochrome, rich and detailed like a Nobuyoshi Araki photograph, allows the film to exist out of conventional chronology but still keep a viewer within the world inside with some semblance of logic, between fiction and documentary but felt fully. What one should feel Container is the psychological state of its main character which it succeeds in.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Expressionist

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

Not a film to compare to Moodysson's dramas. One which sadly become obscure but understandably when it presents a sharp and drastic change in pace from the likes of Show Me Love. On its own however its absolutely admirable and worthy of re-evaluation.

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