J'irai comme un cheval fou

"I Will Walk like a Crazy Horse" is quite an interesting film. Many will find the images repulsive and disgusting; but at the same time you can't help but to be memorized by its beauty. The story concerns Aden, a young man who kills his rich abusive incestuous mother. He flees to the desert to hide. Although Aden is a wealthy aristocrat he is unhappy and almost despises women. (mainly cause of his mom) He meets a dwarf named Marvel with miraculous powers; he can talk to animals, fly and turn night into day. Aden instantly falls in love with Marvel. Marvel has never been to the city and has never seen electronics or any part of western civilization. Aden takes Marvel to the city and this leads them on some funny and disturbing misadventures. The film is basically a rejection of the institutions created by western society. The film contains many bizarre daydream sequences. Some in which are disgusting. This film contains incest, excrement, a child execution, really strange sex and cannibalism. It might make many viewers cringe. The films most memorable and haunting seen is the people in white robes and gas masks dancing, all the while a kid drags a skeleton. If you liked both "El Topo" and "Pink Flamingos" you'll definitely enjoy Arrabal's disturbing and surreal masterpiece. Some parts are really funny, and you wonder if you're supposed to be laughing. It's quite a cinematic experience.

The comments to this bizarre and intriguing film are as interesting as the film itself. People who have never experienced the 20thC European art film milieu will often cry 'pretentious' which is as banal a description or accusation as anything and offers nothing , where the film itself is so full of offering.

I came across this film as a gay theme recommendation which turned out to also be somewhat off-centre considering the epic nature in which modern man's big themes are performed here.

I leave it to the individual to choose regarding seeking out this movie. For me there were two significant rewards in having done so.

1.It is a fine example of the early 70s Auteur-cinema's bent for creating 'tableau' and 'image' - often derived from the contemporary theatre of the time, the advent of the 'Happening' and Performance Art. Often quite stagy, high camp, paying homage to both theatre and cinema (Passolini in mind) it sought profundity and the expression of big themes. To that extent it speaks in a classic period language , and in my mind is a good quality example of the genre.

2. The real surprise on discovering this film 35 years after it's time was how genuinely shocking it actually is. Films like these remind us that the permissive age of the 60s and 70s was authentically radical and that as i write in 2009, i speak from a time of deep conservatism and fear of such a freedom. We no longer trust ourselves with content such as is created in this film. The shock therefore lies ultimately not in the film, but in the fact that my current time is shown to be so oppressive, in the light of the images that flash out from this film.

A short footnote about the Frenchness of this film. The early 70's would see a closure of the taken-for-granted assumption that France was the great cultural engine of the 20th century. Something of the previous spirit resides in this film. The by then established identification of France herself as a geography of Freudianism, of dream, of psychoanalysis; The depiction of the ageing ruins of France's glorious past as mythical symbols of Man's history itself. All this was very much given in French cinema of the day, as a code that conversed with decades of high cultural production. For me it's always a pleasure to experience this outrageous fortune, this extraordinary conceit.

In this, the third entry in Arrabal's surrealist trilogy, he steers away from the socio-political aspects that were so dominant in his previous two films, and focuses more on satirizing the modern world, along with his habitual penchant for the degradation of all things religious and themes of incest.

The basic plot outline is as follows: Aden Rey is on the run from the police after instigating the death of his mother. He eventually finds himself in the desert where he meets a curious dwarf who can communicate with and control nature. In the desert Aden gets in touch with his inner-mystic with the help of Marvel the dwarf. After hanging out with goats and camels in the desert and ultimately becoming obsessed with Marvel, Aden decides to bring him back to civilisation and show him the world.

Marvel is some kind of messianic figure. He has lived for 10,000 years and can turn night into day, make blind people see and command bees and goats to do his bidding. When the pair return to Paris (along with Marvel's goat, Therese) Aden introduces Marvel to women, tea, fancy apartments and cigars, all of which he finds incomprehensible and hilarious - regarding an old man puffing on a cigar: "He is like an infant suckling at the breast!".

At one point during the film Marvel is tricked into joining the circus where his act consists of dancing to rock 'n' roll while the crowd points and laughs, but instead of feeling humiliated he enjoys himself to no end. Halfway through his act he climbs into the lion cage and plays with the beast, then innocently frees it into the audience.

Throughout their adventures Aden suffers from constant flashbacks of his childhood, which reveals his mother to be a domineering, abusive woman who allowed him no contact with the outside world and with whom he was unhealthily in love with. He visits her home and dresses in her lingerie, then, in a nightmarish sequence, messily gives birth to a skull.

Unlike Arrabal's two earlier features I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse is not set during the Spanish Civil War but in Paris in the early 70s, so modernism is the subject of constant parody. We frequently see gasmasked people having sex and involved in bizarre rituals. Marvel's running commentary on the absurdity and pointlessness of things is more often than not on point.

As is to be expected all of Arrabal's grotesque imagery is present, from penis mutilation to some repulsive cannibalism at the end, Arrabal never fails to disgust with his particular brand of surrealism.

A bizarre work of surrealist art. I don't know if I've just outgrown this kind of thing or if this one in particular is just sophomoric, but I didn't like it all that much. I didn't exactly hate it either. It surely has its share of outrageous and entertaining images and gags, but it feels like director Arrabal (best known for writing Jodorowsky's debut film, Fando and Lis) is doing little besides trying to shock the audience. So we get all kinds of penis torture, cannibalism, and poo play, and it gets tiresome long before the film is over. What little story there is has on-the-lam murderer George Shannon running into holy fool dwarf (Hachemi Marzouk) in the desert. The dwarf shows him how he lives in the desert, so Shannon later repays him by bringing him back to Paris. The dwarf, an outcast, continuously points out how silly the modern world is. I rented the film because it was the only one with Emmanuelle Riva that Netflix carried that I hadn't already seen. In particular, the film wasn't worth seeing as a memorial to the recently deceased actress. She plays Shannon's mother and murder victim. She barely says a word and catches some guy's ejaculate. Not her proudest moment.

Three years after Viva la Muerte, Fernando Arrabal created J'Irai Comme Un Cheval Fou (I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse), another masterly piece of cinematic surrealism. It follows two men, Aden and Marvel. Aden is sought by the police and on the run after the death of his mother, when he meets the appropriately named Marvel, a mystical loner who lives in the desert with his goat. One of his Marvel's skills is turning day immediately into night (and vice versa) with the click off his thumbs. Aden falls in love with Marvel, and decides to show him the big city. This is where Arrabal shows us the chaos of humanity. Many memorable images ensue. This is imperative viewing for any people interested in surrealism in film. I can't recommend it enough.