Machorka-Muff (1963)

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Directors: Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Screenwriter: Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

Based on Bonn Diary by Heinrich Böll

Cast: Erich Kuby as Oberst Erich von Machorka-Muff; Renate Lang as Inniga von Zaster-Pehnunz

Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs

Straub-Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, are a duo that evokes weight. They are heavy weights of European art cinema but, in the many discrepancies where prolific names weren't available to us plebeians, are not as well known in English language cinematic culture in comparison to their reputation. Thankfully, knock on wood, the current restorations of their catalogue and widening availability (even physical releases in the USA by Grasshopper Film) will rectify this. Interestingly the first work they ever put together was a short named Machorka-Muff, a very straightforward fragment of narrative stepped in a thick morass of satire. This was far from the image of "difficult" filmmaking as has been presented, and eventually appears, in this duo's work.

Machorka-Muff the character (Erich Kuby) is a former colonel for the Nazi army who is to preside over an opening ceremony for a new institute, as much to salvage the reputation of another high ranking Fascist soldier of yore. He plans to marry Inniga von Zaster-Pehnunz (Renate Lang), in spite of her previous seven marriages and she being a Protestant to his Catholic, with interest in having an adulterous relationship with another's wife since he does enjoy "petty bourgeois eroticism". (Actually, in muted tone, a hilarious line the many times I've watched this eighteen minute short this year; again not expected from Straub-Huillet in the damnedest to be writing actual jokes in their scripts).

He gets the girl, gets to preside over the ceremony and political powers coinciding with public opinion may push for more pro-militarisation, the fragment of a world here, based on a short story by Heinrich Böll, entirely to his favor. And yes, made in 1963, this is only two decades after the defeat of the Fascists and World War II, and is made in West Germany, so this is all disturbing. Hell, this feels disturbing and close to the bone in the 2010s even if you the reader have more conservative politics to me the writer, as it feels the coolest of satires as Machorka-Muff gets all he wants without his past with the Nazis flashing consciousness of guilt.

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Straub, in a written title card, calls this an abstract visual dream, but not abstract in what my view of avant-garde/weird cinema is, played as a narrative clear, calmly (but very well made) short film. It feels however, just into the 1960s, modern for the time, not needing to hammer its concerns home as it itself as a subject should alarm. This also shows their tendencies, within an accessible context, of the directors' trademark of very precisely put together films, cut and constructed so there's no fat to this particularly story; this is something to bear in mind as, with the same author, they also made Not Reconciled (1965), a story told in only fifty three minutes which weaves multiple time frames and situations into one of the densest films possible. Almost deadpan, Machorka-Muff has lines which should elicit perverse amusement as well as disbelief, such as comparing his seven war wounds to Inniga's former seven husbands. How banal all is, even her threat in the last dialogue, that her family's influence can alter politics, just a casual remark pouring tea, is a dark and more honest swipe at far-right wing politics, also itself satire as even these worse case scenarios of the upper class in power are utterly bland individuals if you stop and stare at them like here as zoo exhibitions.

It's not a surprise, when even after World War II former Nazis were said to just be able to go into German politics or the economy without fuss, that Straub-Huillet would make this short as a warning. I suspect all the newspapers they cut to in montage are all real, arguing for remilitarisation of Germany, even Christians arguing that violence can be necessary in opinion pieces, despite a) there being a clear cut difference between just war for soldiers to protect and rampant violent militarisation, and b) no sane Christian should argue for violence over benevolence, and c) this is just over twenty years from when Adolf Hitler was in power.

It's a nice, sudden and sly short to being from; Straub-Huillet, even Straub himself when his life partner passed, have a daunting and large filmography, going from ancient Greek texts to documentaries, a non nonsense almost-documentary view on the legendary composer Bach (originally their intended debut before falling onto Machorka-Muff) to even adapting Franz Kafka. It is nice to know though, like all interesting auteurs, that if they only had a short length of film, they could make something still compelling, and that they weren't averse to accessible cinema as long as it stuck in the craw of the viewer.

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