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It seems like everybody got into the Cremator over the past couple years. Understandably so. Easily one of my favourite films ever made. Looking for more I dove into the scene that spawned it.
The CzSk New Wave came about as a result of a period of political liberalisation in the country. Less government interference meant a greater level of auteurship. Following the Prague Spring this came to an end and many films were banned.
Sometimes overwhelming, full of colour and bizarre dreamlike narratives. Other times slow, plodding and weighted with intense political commentary. These films offer something that you‘d be hard pressed to find in another period of cinema. The kind of expressiveness that only comes from new-found liberation and the eye for technical detail that comes from years of rote reproduction under authoritarianism.
5 films to check out:
1 Something Different
2 The Joke
3 Fireman’s Ball
4 Case for a Rookie Hangman
5 Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
When coming up with a top 5 I had to revisit upon realising 4 out of 5 were directed by Jaromil Jireš. Managed to get it down to two, both of which (The Joke and Valerie Her Week of Wonders) are absolute essentials.
Also worthy of note, this was the environment in which Milos Forman cut his teeth.
Jan 17, 2024
Related Recs
Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? 🧪✨
Coralie Fargeat’s ‘The Substance’ was my most anticipated movie of the year. It’s neon, horror, cerebral, has 80’s vibes, and a synth driven soundtrack. Everything I could want in a movie. This movie eviscerated my brain in the best way possible. I left the theater wondering what in the world did I just experience, but knew I wanted more.
The themes of this movie hit home for me as someone who deals with the pressure of unrealistic beauty standards.
Demi Moore gave her all to this movie and her performance blew me away. Margaret Qualley stole the scene every time she was on screen. Dennis Quaid plays a great sleaze ball. The actors understood the assignment.
That being said, if you’re not a body horror fan, this will be a tough watch. I was definitely squirming in my seat 😅 It also ran a wee bit long for me but do I want to see this again in a packed theatre? Yes.
The last movie that made me feel like this was Gaspar Noé’s Climax, and it does have a similar energy to it.
Overall, this movie was pure madness but utter genius and I highly recommend you go into this movie with as little knowledge as possible.
Sep 30, 2024
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Watching these two films this week has really pulled me out of a funk and reminded me of the type of work I wanna put out. Film is not just content and algorithms, it is living and breathing through the efforts of bold and daring artists.
Dec 30, 2024
i love gore and blood and guts and i love weird bodily transformations and cool practical effects and most importantly i love fucked up freak shit. i also love when a piece of art makes me feel a little sick and uncomfortable in my own skin, inducing a bodily response is a high honor for something simply happening on a screen.
i also feel particularly seen by the genre - it seems like there's a body horror movie for nearly every aspect of the discomfort i feel with my own body and how it relates to my place as a woman (anything fargeat, anything ducournau, swallow (2019), ginger snaps (2000), blue my mind (2018), dans ma peau (2002)... i'm definitely forgetting some) so i find these films very cathartic and special
david cronenberg is the king of this genre, so if you're not super familiar with it, start with him.. videodrome (1983) is my favorite!!
Oct 31, 2024
Top Recs from @embracenothing
As a kid, Punk was everything to me. It was the anti-authoritarian lens through which I viewed everything. Even as I grew out of the music, the ideology still informed everything I did. As I got older and read more theory I started to view punk as infantile and puerile. A childish attempt at transgression. A baby spitting its dummy out.
A couple of years ago, a girl I was seeing gave me a copy of this book, and it rekindled my love for punk.
A sourfaced evisceration of the British state and the then-burgeoning tide of globalisation, this book is an Ode to Wally Hope, a man entrenched in the hippy moment who died as a result of his imprisonment in a mental institution. Through his activism and organising of free parties, Wally was much beloved and his death made of him a martyr for anarcho-punks everywhere. This book doesn't pull its punches and while some of what Rimbaud preaches seems like common knowledge today in the early eighties it would have been revolutionary. I can't recommend this, or the album it was published to accompany (Crass' Christ - the Album) enough.
It's short, if not so sweet, and my copy lives in my back pocket at all times.
Jan 17, 2024
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When I was eleven, my grandparents lived in Cyprus. I'd go and visit them each summer. Most days were blistering hot, and there was nothing to do. Eventually, we found a DVD rental place in town with a bizarre collection of DVDs and PlayStation 2 games. It was there that I first came across the cultural detritus of the early 2000s. The Jackass TV series, the CKY tapes, the first couple seasons of Dudesons and a bunch of bootleg skate wipeout comps. That summer did irreparable damage to my mushy little brain. Mixed in among those DVDs was the first season of Dirty Sanchez.
Dirty Sanchez pushed things further.
Imagine an alternate universe version of Jackass, with no budget, where everybody's a Welsh pisshead. Five minutes into the first episode, I knew I was watching something different. The camera work was shoddy. The pranks/stunts were stripped back. The stars were irredeemable pricks. The lack of framing or gimmicks meant that every action had to be more brutal than the last. From Dainton slamming pushpins into his forehead to an unedited full-frontal shot of Pritchard getting the head of his cock pierced, it was pure, unhinged, masochism. I was obsessed.
The show somehow managed to rack up 4 seasons and a film. Each season upped the production quality and tried to implement some kind of narrative structure to the episodes. The latter seasons still wipe the floor with other similar shows in regards to pushing boundaries and showing some absolutely foul shit, but lack some of the the off-the-cuff charm of the first series that makes it so endearing to this day.
An absolute triumph of car crash TV, upon a recent rewatch, it's still a hilarious, white-knuckle shitshow of a viewing experience. The type of show that could only have come from that brief period in the early 00s where it felt like culture was on a death race to the bottom in search of the dumbest shit you could possibly broadcast. Whether or not it was appropriate viewing for an 11-year-old is up for debate, but if nothing else, it poses the question: 'How the fuck was this on television?' and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Jan 22, 2024