I decided to go back to Czechoslovakia again tonight, with a film that has always enchanted me, even if I never really quite fell in love with it until tonight. Ivan Passer directed this film; his only Czech feature, one year after penning Milos Forman’s first feature, Konkurs, and some time before he penned Forman’s third and fourth films, the classics Loves of a Blonde and Fireman’s Ball. As its title indicates, it is a deeply intimate film...a quietly comic one, and it shares much of Konkurs’s focus on the observation of people, and its love of music (not just music, but actually playing music), real people and life seemingly caught unawares.
Konkurs is a special film, but Intimate Lighting shows a degree of grace and subtlety that even Milos Forman’s best films (from what I can gather, Fireman’s Ball and Loves of a Blonde; have yet to see Taking Off and Black Peter) only touch upon. What really strikes me about the film is just how delicate it is. It is, ostensibly, an observation of a couple of middle aged men who get together at one of their houses (in the country; the other man comes from the city, to catch up on old times. And “observation” is the key: there is no real plot to follow, and most of the scenes have no real great narrative link to the former scene. Instead, Passer and his film show tiny, incidental vignettes into their vacation; the people almost entirely at play or leisure. The film is alternately silly and banal, with there being only the tiniest hints of real ‘drama’...a child crying because a hen bit him, two old men complaining about how hard it is to play their instruments with their joints, and the two intoxicated friends quietly slipping about the little country house at night to listen to everyone’s snores.
And that’s really where the magic of this film is. While a cursory viewing to the film may prove to be a rather dull experience to a less observant viewer, a more observant viewing (and/or further viewings) reveals a sublime, gentle wit to those observations made by the film, and a cast of characters which; though so lightly presented, are nevertheless incredibly real and whole, and memorable. Again, like Konkurs, the film is played out in an utterly naturalist style; almost documentary, though its gentleness and quiet delivery definitely separate it from the more chaotic film I keep comparing it too. Even if you don’t quite get it; and on my first viewing I certainly didn’t, it has an effortless charm to it. And on repeat viewings, it gets exponentially better and more pleasing. Absurdity abounds in this film’s gentle nature, and there are so many little moments that will either leave you smiling or outright laughing. The character I most remember from the film is Steppa; the girlfriend of the guest. While much of the film is spent examining the little absurdities of the other adults, she brings a childlike tone into the film; almost a fable quality as she plays endearingly with animals and children and, most notably, bursts into uncontrollable laughter after an admittedly hilarious (but not for the others!) food mishap. She never breaks the film’s natural tone, however.
Intimate Lighting is a poetic film, but its poetry comes not from its visual aesthetic, but from that very naturalism I mentioned; moments of quiet observations, many of them made by Steppa as well as the camera. In the end, a bittersweet sadness underlines this tiny film...an unbearable lightness only occasionally emphasised by some of the film’s more overt ironies. Perhaps its most purely poetic scene and image; the one I remember most from the film, is the scene in which the hens have invaded the car garage, trying to find a place to lay their eggs. Furious, the husband starts the car and launches it out of the garage to knock the chickens off. The camera follows an egg; freshly laid in the chaos, as it rolls next to the body of a hen, dying as a result of the confusion. Its not really a metaphor for anything specific, perhaps, but it’s one of the most piercing moments in the film, and perhaps its most poignant. Handled quietly, delicately, simply and without moralization, like the rest of the film. Intimate Lighting is a true gem.
95 / 100
This film isn’t available to own in the USA yet, but in the UK, Second Run DVD has once again pulled through. While this simple black and white film transfer has some fluctuation in the image, overall its very sharp and faithful to the film’s low budget roots, and in much better shape than their disc of Milos Forman’s Konkurs. There is also a nice booklet with a good essay on the film, and a 20 minute interview with the director. I’d like to see this film get a US release; preferably by Criterion, but I can’t see what they’d add to it, aside from a somwhat better transfer and maybe the short film A Boring Afternoon, which Passer made one year prior to this. It’s a film that speaks for itself. For now, this great disc is worth a purchase. I would also like to see Passer’s American film, Cutter’s Way, and the TV film Stalin starring Robert Duvall.
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