Man Is Not a Bird

Dušan Makavejev's directorial debut looks at the lives of some people in a mining town. I interpreted "Čovek nije tica" ("Man Is Not a Bird" in English) as a satire on Yugoslavian society. Yugoslavia was initially part of the Eastern Bloc, but Tito's disagreements with Stalin led to its expulsion from the alliance. Nevertheless, Eastern Bloc-style policies remained in place. The wealth stayed concentrated among the party, while most people worked dangerous jobs. It may have been easier for people in the US and Western Europe to go to Yugoslavia than to the rest of Eastern Europe, but to its citizens it was little different from the Soviet bloc. And the hypnosis scenes? It might evoke abstract hypnosis, or convincing people of something that isn't true: both the Eastern and Western blocs tried to pass themselves off as defenders of freedom, even as both did unethical things. To be certain, the open-pit mine looks like the sort of thing that one would find in West Virginia.

I found it to be a good movie. I now hope to see Makavejev's other movies.

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.

Covek nije tica AKA Man Is Not A Bird is one of the three first full-length films by director Dusan Makavejev. Makavejev is the most well known and also the most bizarre Yugoslavian director. In his films erotic and political catalog face each other, he combines old propaganda material with early pornographic images (The Switchboard Operator is actually a better example of this). He was one of the most important filmmakers in Novi-film, which means the Eastern bloc new wave during the Cold War.

The class division to miners and educated experts shocked Makavejev, who wanted to show the true workers. Man Is Not A Bird is about a dull ordinary miner-town, where a hypnotist Roko delivers enjoyment and relief to the workers. He can make them believe that they are free, socialist heroes or even birds. The film has two different stories from the same town. A town which has no way out, which is in domination of its government.

As we know in the 1960's New Wave ran through Europe. We probably remember best the French new wave (Truffaut, Godard). But the new artistic movement did also arrive to the other side of Europe, to the Eastern bloc. Novi-film doesn't narratively differ much from French new wave, but its collage-style is something you don't see in France. They are as cheer as other new wave films, but also the satire of them is as strong. In Czechoslovakia for instance the government banned many films by Milos Forman and Jiri Menzel. I don't know much about the destiny of these Yugoslavian films, but they must've shocked people.

Why a man can't be a bird? He can, only with the help of a hypnotist, but a deeper meaning hides in the title. I thought that it meant; A man is not a bird because it cannot fly free. We can't fly free as birds, because we are held down by society, relationships, work and the pressure of our community. But should we be free like birds? This is a big theme in this fine film by Makavejev and it discusses about it. A Man Is Not A Bird also deals up with class division and other social issues of Yugoslavia. I found it very interesting and well made. If you enjoyed this be sure to check out Dusan Makavejev's other early film: Love Affair: Or The Case of The Missing Switchboard Operator.

This is one of Makavejev's early movies. An elder man, an engineer, Jan Rudinski, is invited to a little town on the east of Serbia to put together the machinery for copper production. There he meets young and pretty Rajka and they fall in in love with each other. She is charmed with his virility and his intelligence. At the end she is about have an one-night adventure with young truck driver. On the other side flows the story in a factory. Factory is the metonymy for communism. Makavejev depicts opportunities in Serbia during post-war time in a very distinctive manner. It seems to me that these two issues are very present in his later works - love (~sex) and Serbian communist period. But he always talks about it with a such humor, almost mocking. It is like he wants to say that life is almost nothing but a game - love, hate, death, working.

Yes, it is true that it's plot is pretty simple. But it seems that the director wasn't much occupied with it either. The word 'game' is not just the question of the plot, but also the question of the style. Makavejev experiments with movie form. He mixes some documentary (or quasi-documentary) material with the played material. The effect is achieving a kind of essay-like sense. This meta-text, meta-story, an extra course, if you want, is about hypnosis. Thus, this element stays in some strange relationship with the basic plot. This is very important, because he develops this method in his further masterpieces: "W.R. - Misterije organizma" (W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism), "Nevinost bez zastite" (Innocence unprotected), "Ljubavni slucaj ili tragedija sluzbenice P.T.T."(Love Affair; or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator). I do not recommend this movie to, I may say, lower-level customers, accustomed to the conventional forms, but to those who are seeking for some new once, to those who are almost never satisified

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.)