The colorful characters finally play in unison only in absurdity, sweeping the cacophony of regrets and fears.
If we only had to name a filmmaker who did not receive the recognition
he/she could have claimed, it would be for us that of Ivan Passer. A
regular screenwriter of Miloš Forman’s Czech films, he accompanied her to the
United States in the early 1970s to pursue a solo career as a director,
devoting himself to social columns close to the economy of their B series or schoolboy
comedy. Traumatized by scenes of
war that he witnessed during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, deeply
non-violent, Passer will refuse to shoot scripts that he would consider too
blunt, which will serve it in the climate of permissiveness displayed in 70’s
production. Too honest, however, to
consent to the realization of affective analgesics, he will never stop
participating in the production of infantilizing products as he will swarm
during the following period. Of great delicacy, his films nonetheless take an uncompromising look at
the state of the world, capable of tackling downgrades head-on, resulting for
example from an addiction (Born to win), or of operating 180 ° emotional
turns (the death of a protagonist two-thirds of the way through in Law and
disorder). He is also responsible
for one of the best kept secrets of American cinema: the less and less unknown
Cutter's Way. Intimate Lighting, his first feature film, is the only one
he directed in his home country. He carries with him all the above qualities,
in a modesty and a simplicity of tone further accentuating the respect he
inspires.
To those (we are) who consider the ideal duration of a film to be a
little more than an hour or on the contrary beyond the three, the 72 minutes of
Intimate Lighting will make the effect of a passage of fresh air. This
freshness, even more than that of the format, is that of a slice of life, a
chronicle freed from the dictates of the script-king, more concerned with
capturing the life of his characters than with placing them in a straitjacket
(of the traditional dramaturgy or of any thesis). In one sense, not much
happens during the film. In another, every minute there is full of tasty
details - funny or disarming. Intelligent enough to spare a place to the idiocy
sometimes inherent in life, he works on a daily elegy, a singular romanticism
that would seek the beautiful (or the terrible) in the neglected soil of the
ordinary. Intimate Lighting is a down-to-earth film - and it would be the
first, and most decisive, compliment to make it. Like Forman, to film Czech
life, Passer prefers the authenticity brought by amateurs to the making of the
game by professionals.
Although there is a certain ease in speaking of humor as the
"politeness of despair" (does it not fulfill many other offices?), It
is indeed a sad comedy in question. . "People would rather cry than
laugh," warns a grandfather to witnesses of a funeral procession,
recalling the universality of manifestations of sadness, the distance that
could be made "if the engines were fueled to tears. These considerations
fade away on their own as the same group turns their gaze to the female figure
standing out from them to follow the bereaved. A communion in desire, musical
practice, a joke, the action of toasting or around a table, babbling,
contemplation of nature are used here in a recurring mode to push back the
specter (past or to come?) of a drama without real escape. Those black suits
crossing a rye field, which are not enough to interrupt the sickle labor of a
fat farmer in a functional bikini. Passer sketches a human comedy working
together to evade the affliction specific to the conditions of existence
(disappointed hopes, fears mixed with regrets). This collective effort - this
is perhaps the film's only stake - is subject to a constant risk: that of
cacophony.
Hence the centrality of music even in the characterization of the
characters (almost all of them seem to enjoy the mastery of an instrument).
Bambas (Karel Blazek), director of a small town music school, invites Peter
(Zdeněk Bezušek), violinist in Prague, to a concert. He shows up with his
girlfriend Stepa (Vera Křesadlová) to spend the weekend in the villa that
Bambas built on his own - and where he shelters his entire family. Peter's way
of life, which is more bohemian, is relatively irreconcilable with that of
Bambas, more typical of a provincial intelligentsia. Laughter and a shared
melomania seal a successful reunion. During the events, both question half-word
their choice of life and each, either leaves where it came from or remains from
where it never left. The slight shifts, tacit friction or tenuous agreements
will be the point of attention of this story without history, where the
"incidents" are relegated to an ellipse (what, to earn him a bandage
in the morning, hurt Bambas at the head during the night?). Simple story of a
stay, harmonious in outline.
Passer takes pleasure, mischievous against malignancy, in sweeping away
implicitly all the "crisp" intrigues that could arise from its
overall portrait. Amourette or bedtime that would offend two old friends? Too
easy, too expected. His directing does not deviate an inch from its paradoxical
project: to let actresses collectively wander in a climate of controlled
reverie. Wide shots framing the group in the brewery, or close-ups isolating
those whom strict fiction would prune: children, old people, but also animal
kingdom. It is no coincidence that the funeral march comes to connect with the
remains of a crushed gallinaceous. Nothing here is unworthy of attention. In
agreement or dissonance, everyone works to find their place or to grant it to
another, in a whole whose cohesion would depend on minimum guidelines: esteem
for a job well done, ability to listen, common sense , love of true
relationships, taste for conviviality, ease of reception ... In a sense, the
value of this cohesion here lies in its fragility. It is only to a young
foreigner that an elderly housewife can entrust a past adventure (her abduction
by her husband) before performing an improbable pirouette on herself. Using
their free time, individuals might refuse the exchange that takes place there.
It goes without saying that this freedom, in their everyday life, family or
professional, would hardly be granted to them. It does not bring down all the
partitions, for example, between an amused Stepa and a visibly retarded
admirer.
Taken by the euphoria of drunkenness and fatigue combined, the two
companions plan to take the road in the middle of the night to seal a new
philharmonic pact. This line of escape fades of itself, leaving the comrades
again in the garage in the early morning (the rooster, this time, triumph)...
consenting, though vaporous, to breakfast that will heal their common hangover.
Refusing to distinguish the essential from the anecdotal, the film works
instead to reconcile, for a time defined as limited, existential paths and
details of a life - and to do this to find the right tone, to operate this
slight shift of the gaze offering another perspective, The one you expect from
a friend. In short, by directing that there is no abandoned character, a lost
moment. "At concerts, at pretty women..." Zero naivety, zero
bitterness. A humanism, without counterfeit. Intimate lighting, simply bright.
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