1971
was a tumultuous year for cinema if not the freest, most controversial period
the film medium has ever seen globally.
From A Clockwork Orange to The Devils to Straw Dogs, mainstream movies took an incredibly dark turn with a
penchant for extreme violence, graphic sexuality, incendiary politics or
otherwise aberrant film content. And yet
for all the furor engendered by the aforementioned three pictures, few if any
in the medium that year came anywhere close to being as shockingly provocative
as Fernando Arrabal’s debut surrealist freak show Viva La Muerte! aka Long Live
Death! A favorite of John Lennon and
Yoko Ono spoken of the same breath as Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain with a constant
gleeful needing desire to affront and offend, the still potent divisive
celluloid poison pill comes to blu-ray disc for the first time via Radiance
Films in a brand new 4K digital restoration of the original 35mm camera
negative. A word of warning outright
regarding this particular brand of distinctly Spanish surrealism: lots of
animals die brutally on camera in the name of art for this.
During the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, young Fando (Mahdi Chaouch) living with his mother (Nuria Espert) and aunt (Anouk Ferjac) wanders the scorching barren desert landscapes of Spain soul searching over his father Tosan’s (Ivan Henriques) incarceration. As it turns out through broken flashbacks presented on grimy grainy videotape and monochromatic color filters, Tosan’s fascist leaning wife ratted him out to the police as a communist. Despite being told he was executed, Fando relentlessly searches for his father Tosan anyway and through a series of imaginings and flashbacks try to speculate on what might be going on with him as he nears finding him.
Allegorical for the writer-director’s experiences of the Spanish Civil War and adorned with stunningly provocative surrealist drawings by Roland Topor which open and close the credits of the film, Viva La Muerte! is an unending cavalcade of extreme imagery including but not limited to lizards’ heads being bitten off or bulls being slaughtered before the maternal figure in the film rolls around bathing herself in its fresh blood. Not for the faint hearted or for most people but perfectly poised for the midnight movie transgressive crowd where the film invariably found a following, the film is a collage mashup of film and video footage juxtaposed together rather loosely telling a narrative about a child trying to make sense of his life of being born into a world at war.
Boasting arresting if not deathly hot cinematography that feels sweaty, dusty and dry as a bone by French cameraman Jean-Marc Ripert, Viva La Muerte! is the kind of film that could burn you if you get too close to its radiating, increasingly violent and perversely borderline pedophilic vistas. The film lacks a conventional score, instead using random arrangements by Jean-Yves Bosseur, and at one point the film breaks into English vocoder sing song because why not? The four main characters in it, from child actor Mahdi Chaouch to the adults played by Anouk Ferjac, Nuria Espert and Ivan Henriques, go through a lot more than most people would put up with to make a movie. With more than a few insinuations of violent and/or sexual torture, a scene that completely outdoes the deer encounter in Freddy Got Fingered, this is mean and mad surreal provocation designed to enrage and infuriate in an almost Dadaist manner.
That’s not to say this cruel angry slap in the face isn’t completely unendurable though. For all of the vulgarities and countless animal deaths onscreen designed to provoke and anger viewers, it does somehow or other convey a sense of nebulous childish understanding of being born into a life of violent political discourse. Deserving of every bit of the controversy and censorship it engendered while also acknowledging softening this picture’s jagged sharp edges would negate the film’s purpose, Viva La Muerte! is most certainly the hardest release yet by the boutique label Radiance Films. An important work of surrealism that might still be far too much for people to stomach and certainly the toughest film of 1971, Viva La Muerte! won’t be for everyone but those brave enough to take the journey into this cinematic septic tank will come away feeling strangely moved. That is provided you can keep looking at the screen through your fingers covering your eyes.
--Andrew Kotwicki