Man is Not a Bird
Avala Film, 1965
Starring: Janez Vrhovec, Milena Dravic, and Boris Dvornik
Director: Dusan Makavejev
The plot: In Cold War Yugoslavia, engineer Jan (Vrhovec) comes to a grim, depressed mining community to install new equipment. While getting a haircut, he asks Rajka (Dravic), his pretty blond barber, if she knows where he can room for a few weeks. She offers her own home, where she lives with her parents. She is soon flirting with the much older lodger, while also tempting a young truck driver (Dvornik). With her parents away, Rajka invites Jan to sleep with her. Jan is cautious about their age difference, but they begin a pleasant relationship. When she worries that he will be leaving soon, he tells her he will take her with him.
Why it’s good: Complex and sophisticated, “Man Is Not a Bird” shows how one faced reality in the gray, industrial Soviet satellite countries of the Eastern Bloc. Comforts — sex, food, alcohol, and anything novel — were welcome distractions from the desultory monotony of the post-war Communist states. Jan is proud of his status as a valued comrade in the race with the West, but he is cynical about the results and realities of the classless utopia. Rajka is half his age, but perfectly on the same page with her disillusionment. They find common ground in bed, and try to squeeze some solace from their essentially sad lives. It’s astounding the Yugoslavs allowed such an unblinking portrait to be produced and then exhibited to the West (they would pull the plug on Makavejev later). The black-and-white depictions of the ravaged mining landscapes, the clamoring, filthy, equipment, and the homely, sordid circumstances of the small-town struggling workers were no endorsement for a Communist revolution. The Kremlin could not have been pleased. Makavejev’s script, written with Rasa Popov, is brave and touching. The performances seem as if they’re from a documentary; the cold-eyed poignancy is heartbreaking.
Should I watch it? Absolutely. Makavejev is my pick for the most under-rated director. His films were groundbreaking. He followed Bird, his first full-length feature, with the charming and disquieting, Love Affair, and Innocence Unprotected. His 1971 breakthrough, WR: Mysteries of the Organism, is a political satire that has to be seen to be believed. He scandalized many with his perverse, scatological, and brilliant films Sweet Movie, and Montenegro, and then settled into the relative normalcy of The Coca-Cola Kid, Manifesto, and The Gorilla Bathes at Noon. Now 82, he ranks alongside directors like Polanski, Bergman, Godard, and Wertmuller — even if his body of work seems largely ignored. Criterion’s wonderful three-disc DVD release Free Radical showcases Makavejev’s first three films and includes some fine special features.