A recent article in "Sight and Sound" asked 75 film critics from around the world to nominate films which time has forgotten, hidden gems by and large unknown. "The Mad Fox" (1962) was one of these and when I noticed that the BFI's season dedicated to Japanese director Tomu Uchida included this movie, I was there -- but ever so disappointed. Perhaps the fable of a fortune-teller driven mad by murder marrying his dead lover's ringer who is actually a fox in human form was just too esoterically presented with its Kabuki wailing to register with my Western sensibilities or perhaps it was just too late in the day to accept the strange artifice on view. It reminded me of the similar "Princess Raccoon" but without that movie's charm or visual beauty.
A rather more successful National Film Theatre outing was to see "The Saragossa Manuscript" (1965), a film which has been on my "must see" list for years, and I am delighted that I now have done so. It is an adaptation of part of a massive Polish novel by Count Jan Potocki which was published in 1813 and is nearly beyond description. A young Belgian captain in 17th Century Spain wanders through a dreamlike barren landscape and stumbles upon a manuscript at a deserted inn which tells of the exploits of an ancestor. We begin to relive these through the various characters he encounters, but the movie is a series of Chinese boxes as each character begins to tell his tale leading to the characters introduced each wanting to tell their own tales. And so it rambles on and on until we eventually come back to what may or may not be current reality. On the way we mix with enchanting Muslim ladies, gaga aristos, rotting hanging corpses, mystics, and cabalists. Filmed in magnificent wide-screen black and white with a memorable Penderecki score, I felt as if I had been on some sort of magical drug trip without resorting to foreign substances. I don't normally choose to see films which are over three hours long -- and on one level I wonder why any film needs to be so extended -- but this one was a wondrous ride.
I'll be back some time before the New Year. In the meantime, have a happy holiday.. Disappeared...again
1 comment:
The Saragossa manuscript reminded me of early Jodorowsky both in the settings
and the involved telling though this is definitely in a lighter vein. Overall, the
acting was sound though some of it seemed a little stilted but this is certainly a
film worth seeing again if the opportunity arises.
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