Man Is Not a Bird

The debut feature film of Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev, best known for his films WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie. These are the three films of his I've so far seen (and, along with Man Is Not a Bird, I also own two more in a recently released Eclipse box set). He's very clearly a unique director. Man Is Not a Bird is kind of a mixture of avant garde, semi-documentary film-making mixed with wry comedy, social realism of the sort you often see from countries behind the Iron Curtain and French New Wave stylistic touches. It's a real mishmash, but it works pretty well. If the stories of the film had been a tad more interesting, I could see this film having a greater impact. As it is, it follows a couple of stories in the mining town of Bor, one involving a middle-aged man who has arrived in the town to work as an engineer. He begins an affair with a much younger hairdresser (Milena Dravic, who is also featured in WR). The other major plot line involves a worker at the smelting plant who treats his homely wife cruelly. Much like Sweet Movie, which is by far my favorite Makavejev film so far, the true value of the film is in its gorgeous imagery, here in black and white. Makavejev especially finds wonderful ways of shooting Milena Dravic, with whose form he seems obsessed at times. I would say this doesn't feel like a fully-formed film, but it's definitely of interest.

As a matter of pure pleasure, a measurement held dear by this auteur, this might compete with the great "WR: Mysteries of the Organism" as my favorite of Machevejev's movies. It's probably not the writer- director's second greatest work, but, with it's movingly alive, yet unflattering depiction of a communist- Yugoslavia mining town, it particularly moved me. The film's critique of Yugoslavian communism: profoundly, but predictably disappointing, yet just barely worthy of affirmation, seemed to me a brilliant description of life itself.

Machevejev may well be the most affirmationally erotic artist in the cinematic canon. Human touch always affirms life, for the better or worse of the subsequently affirmed. Here, all involved turn out okay: they get to continue to enjoy the spectacle that is the socialist circus of life. (For me, Machevejev's affirmation of the existential circus seems much more sincere than that of, say, Fellini.)

In Dusan Makavejev's somewhat brilliant debut feature, he does not go full on crazy like he does in some of his later works; however, sprinkles of such insanity can be found all throughout this charming, tragic, funny, and wild romance. Combining various elements that range from the comic to the dramatic and the gritty to the surreal, "Man Is Not a Bird" functions primarily as a tribute to the common, everyday working man, as well as an unconventional love story focusing on an unlikely couple's stunningly sensual transgenerational relationship. These two portraits of society merge into a single small scale epic tragicomedy, one that sparkles with emotion and delight. Although a bit slow at first, by the second half of this movie I was mostly hooked. The Beethoven concert scene is moving, both in its camera-work and emotional intensity, and within the last ten or so minutes Makavejev really seems to go bonkers. Playing with and crossing the boundaries of everyday occurrences and fantastical, almost Felliniesque moments of mild fantasy, Makavejev begins to really blur the line between tragedy and comedy; the film's final moments work as both masterworks painted with both tears and laughter.

One of Makavejev's 1st films, the title, Man is Not a Bird refers to a hypnotist who makes people act like birds. It seems to be a veiled reference to the authorities; one line actually mentions the "authorities", but that's as specific as it was allowed to be at the time.

Shot is black and white in 1965 Covek Nije Tice depicts a man who cheats on his wife, but is still considered a heroic worker for propaganda purposes. Another man, an engineer who comes to town finds himself attracted to the daughter of his landlord.

It's a great film because of the atmosphere it creates of the Yugoslav world, especially significant since the destruction of that world.

Dusan Makavejev made himself known in the world of international cinema with his first film, Man in Not a Bird, and it's a film that juggles stories and a political atmosphere (mostly) in the guise of a documentary on a copper mill. It deals with romance and work, two themes that Makavejev would toy with and dissect with his anarchic and absurdist style throughout his whole career. It's about a construction foreman, Jan Rudinski (Janez Vrhovec), who is in town to oversee the copper mill, and a hairdresser named Rajka (Milena Dravić) who falls in love with him. How this happens is never made exactly clear, even as Makavejev indulges in a moodily-lit lovemaking scene that tells us all we need to know about their passion, nor is it clear how he is really attracted to her. That is, until their relationship becomes compromised by a man closer to her age, a guy who always comes in to the barbershop to get shaved even when he doesn't need it, just to hit on her.

It's this, plus an undercooked story of a drunken man and his troublesome own affair that brings out a huge girl-fight between his wife and his lover in the middle of a street, that marks the dramatic side of the picture. Mixing in and out of these stories is footage of the mill, the workers working diligently, leading up to a big celebratory concert where Beethoven's 9th fills the air (also in cutaways to Rajka having her fling with the man in the truck as her actual lover sits in his awarding ceremony).

It's not filled with Makavejev's rampant humor, and it's more of a real "film" instead of one of his hybrid comedy-documentaries. Man is Not a Bird is a fresh burst of original film-making, and if it's not always engaging during its 79 minutes (I found myself tuning out in a couple of scenes) it's still reveals an artist with something to say. There's something urgent about his film, particularly towards the end and during those hypnotist scenes where the audience is enraptures by the hypnotists skills directing people on a stage. Makavejev is after an essential truth in human nature: work and love can't always go together, or sometimes one takes over the other, and a (Communist) nation like the one this is set in needs to find a balance of both.