The Rat Savior (1976)

 

a.k.a. Izbavitelj

Director: Krsto Papic

Screenplay: Ivo Bresan, Krsto Papic and Zoran Tadic

Based on a novel by Alexander Grin

Cast: Ivica Vidovic as Ivan Gajski; Mirjana Majurec as Sonja Boskovic; Relja Basic as Gradonacelnik; Fabijan Sovagovic as Profesor Martin Boskovic

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #16

 

Wishing to uncover horror and fantastique cinema from all around the world, I turn my eyes to this Croatian production, made when Croatia was part of the former Yugoslavia. The film was shot in the future Croatia's capital Zagreb, which adds a considerable production value to the film once I talk of it, and helmed by the prolific Krsto Papic, a significant figure in terms of Croatian cinema among former Yugoslavian filmmakers. Notably, in terms of the international connections, this is actually an adaptation of a novel by Alexander Grin, a Russian novelist whose work juggled both the fantastic but many tropes and archetypes of pulp narratives, from sailors to criminal, in romantic settings. I have, unexpectedly encountered him before, emphasising his reach in Eastern European culture as his novel Jessie and Morgiana (1929) was adapted into the magnificent Czechoslovak film Morgiana (1972).

The Rat Savior, whilst his work did not explicitly tackle the environment he lived in, definitely evokes that Grin was a member of the Socialist revolutionary party who was arrested many times, as the backdrop to this Croatian set production imagines a world on the brink of economic collapse. A struggling writer named Ivan Gajski (Ivica Vidovic) is reduced, when kicked out of his rented apartment, to selling his own books out the street. Luck has it, encountering the former owner of a store now having to be a park warden for a safe pay check, finds him and shows kindness to his acquaintance when, rather than letting Ivan sleep in the park, he sneaks him into an abandoned bank to sleep in for a couple of days. To his surprise that night there, Ivan discovers a bizarre orgy in one of the halls, with a mass of people dining, having literally orgies and surrounding a strange "savoir" lead by hooded figures who conspire to take over the city, even eliminating those in their way.

This said group are literally rat-people, rats that have disguised themselves as human beings and wish to take over. Here I do have to spin and debate a potentially controversial interpretation of the material as, whilst it is never explicitly suggested in the film, some people may draw from it this side. Obviously there is a theme of corruption, an insidious form overtaking the world be it is fascism or another form, which even for a writer known more for his romance and adventurous stories may have been one time he referred to his political concerns. The issue, not to accuse Grin in the slightest, is that with rats a common metaphor in this, you could easily view the film's narrative as anti-Semitic. This is as much unfortunately due to the use of rats as a metaphor for Jewish people, more so as this film happens to have this secret cabal operating out of a bank. Neither will I accuse the 1976 itself of an insidious metaphor, especially as the film's lore is significantly more complicated than merely of rat-people hiding among human beings.

They are literally becoming doppelgangers of real people, able to steal their form seemingly as rodents biting the victims. The result is a non-science fiction interpretation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), first made as a film by Don Siegel, and always a film (before you consider its various adaptations) as either a metaphor for communism's evil influence or even a damnation of fifties conformity. We can read so many metaphors in horror and fantasy, what the mood was of the time or what ideas still lingered in the consciousness, that even if controversial to bring up, there is a potential danger that a viewer may come to this debating whether old, problematic ideals of anti- Semitism may have slipped in even if accidentally. It could merely be that using the metaphor of the rat is such a loaded concept, due to the type of metaphors this film uses having unfortunately been used by other more insidious sources. Barring this, I can affirm this will be a very glowing review for The Rat Savior, but it does need to be considered at least once.

Entirely because, as an idiosyncratic film made from a culture whose cinema has sadly been neglected, The Rat Savior was a compelling little piece and also as much able to stand on its own two feet with virtues. Not quite horror, it is still gruesome at points including when the rat-people torment victims by putting them in a cage to be bitten by the rodent kin.  It is likely a period film due to how timeless it is, but even that adds a mysterious energy to the production. Even if this is a very conventional narrative in structure, it oozes its own personality. The central location, of Zagreb, is an ageless world from a century before, one with the help of some distinct production design and even some fog machines having its own menace as the film progresses. Papic and the film crew also come to this with a lot of clear talent, a film which whilst a genre film is filmed with an elegance of a production wishing to bask in the world it is creating. A sense of being caught off-guard is immediately to be found in the open credits - of deeply surreal and vivid paintings, of rat people biting limbs off and openly surrealistic iconography including people spawning of out trees and giant eyes, welcomes us to the story as something unconventional as does a jazz soundtrack. It is of the time - and there is even jazz flute for the Ron Burgundy fans - but it is a very distinct and unique soundtrack to score this film, especially as it is good.

Even if the makeup design for the rat-people, as Ivan learns of the conspiracy and helps create a rat poison which exposes them, is pretty obvious, what with fake teeth and hair on actors, this is still a very ominous narrative especially as the paranoia of learning who is a doppelganger and who is not comes into play. With the sense of even those in higher power like among the police are part of the rat-people, the film does not take the easy way out with a twist to the ending that is a tragedy and is helped but it never being a film, at eighty minutes, which overstretches the narrative further then it needs to. Some of the film defiantly has streaks of pure genre - including a romantic subplot for Ivan, the film does brazenly crowbar in some female nudity unexpectedly - but it also has an elegance to fit its dread. It is not surprising, when held in high regard the film's homeland, that whilst (sadly) the film is obscurer further west in the globe, Krsto Papic himself readapted the film as Infection (2003). Whether that was ever a success as a film is for another day, but it is telling the investment, and the clear sense of accomplishment, that Papic even decided to remake one of his own films for a new world and era.