Zulawski orgy roundup part 1: The Important Thing Is To Use Lots of Parentheses

"Funny how? I mean, funny like a clown? I amuse you?"
L to R: Fabio Testi, Romy Schneider, Jacques Dutronc
(Image: Greencine)

BAM Rose Cinema's current Andrzej Zulawski series has been a lesson in how much of a difference context makes in the experience of viewing movies (or experiencing any art or entertainment). If I casually watched any one of these films on its own, I would probably react less kindly than I've been inclined to, as ridiculous and arguably pretentious as they often are. Immersion in the director's unique style has done a lot to acclimate me to its initially off-putting aspects (as they say, if you put a frog in a pan on the stove and gradually expose it to Zulawski movies... something something). 

But I'm also affected by extra-cinematic influences, as most people are, whether they admit it or not. The abundant, often breathless coverage of the series in the press and online (again, see Mubi's roundup of links), positioning him as an underappreciated genius auteur finally getting his due, makes me want to like them. All these other people are so excited - I want to be excited, too. And I am, up to a point, but then I shake my head vigorously and slap my face like a movie character staving off hallucination - notice I'm sounding more sober than I did when I wrote this entry in a post-screening buzz after L'Amour Braque (about which more later), not to mention a haze of late-night, mid-week exhaustion.

Take The Important Thing is to Love (1975), Zulawski's first of several French productions (he he wasn't terribly welcome in his native Poland as far as the authorities were concerned). If I'd stumbled across this deeply strange and inconsistent love story on TV, I'd have probably watched with a quizzically tilted head and squinted eyes for a half-hour or so, and then turned it off, briefly arching my eyebrow as I walked away. But in the event, I was primed to expect certain qualities and to tolerate and even embrace certain quirks, so I was able to get something out of it and even sometimes enjoy it. It's not my favorite Zulawski by a long shot, but it's an interesting beast. 

It's a living: Schneider on the set of Nymphocula
(Image: ToutLeCine)

The central love triangle might be the most subdued and naturalistic work I've seen from this filmmaker, though it sounds outre on paper: 1) faded actress Romy Schneider, stuck in sexploitation work with titles like Nymphocula; 2) her husband Jacques Dutronc, a boyish, neurotic movie geek (hey!) who rescued her from the depths of drug addiction years before; 3) and brooding-hunk photographer Fabio Testi, indebted to gangsters and stuck shooting sleazy fetish porn for them, who falls for Schneider and arranges her casting in an avant-garde Shakespeare production in a bid at redemption for her and himself. The scenes involving these three in various combinations sometimes fit comfortably into the time-honored cinema francais tradition of talky chamber romances featuring achingly sincere characters holding forth philosophically while pacing vast Paris apartments and cute Paris cafes. 

But they're surrounded by often hilarious camp insanity. Testi's eerie, pasty-faced mob associates in over-sized pinstripe suits are like something out of a David Lynch-directed Guys and Dolls. The garishly Japanese-styled Richard III is presided over by a mincing gay director with a closetful of outrageous work outfits, and the title role is taken by Klaus Kinski, official Crazy Motherfucker of '70s European film*, in his full bug-eyed majesty (Kinski-meets-Zulawski is one of those had-to-happen things that thankfully did happen). And then there's, well, stuff like this... 

(Image: Greencine)

... which is enough to make me determined never to put myself in thrall to mob pornographers. 

Honestly, I was often impatient with the lovers' endlessly rehashed dilemma, tapping my foot for the next burst of thrilling nuttiness (which, again, probably had something to do with pre-existing expectations formed by other writers). That said, Jacques Dutronc slowly became my favorite facet of the movie with his nimble comic-tragic performance as a man-child who hides his insecurity, sorrow and anger behind a calculated clownishness as he watches the love of his life slowly drift away to another man. I'll even take him over Romy Schneider's fiercely committed, grand-opera-scaled heroine, which won her a Best Actress Cesar (the French equivalent to the Oscar).

Here's the thing about an artist with a wildly non-conformist aesthetic and philosophy - most objections one might make can be neutralized by the retort that you just don't get it because your thinking is too conventional. There are those who term Important Thing a masterpiece or the filmmaker's greatest or whatever (Tim Lucas makes a heartfelt case), but I can't get there past the tonal inconsistency, or to be more specific, the mutually negating poker-faced anguish on the one hand and parodic excess on the other. "Tsk, that's how it's supposed to be!" enthusiasts might retort, and maybe so (though I'm not sure this filmmaker always knows when he's being funny). At any rate, I prefer my Zulawskis where the blend of the two is finessed more smoothly - above all, Possession, which will get its own review later.

Ah, but... Zulawski moves in mysterious ways, and I was surprised at how moved I was by the final scene, which I won't spoil here, on the unlikely chance anyone reading this sees it eventually. But it was enough to make me look back and wonder if it all worked better than I'd thought. This is a story of people who have decided they're not worth a second chance and find to their surprise that they are. Maybe I'll give the film itself the same chance someday.

"Funny how? I mean, funny like a clown? I amuse you?":
Kinski steals the show (Image: What Did Matt Watch)

*[Note: This was an actual, officially designated position, with a stipend to Kinski paid jointly by several government cultural departments - a key piece of the groundwork for the European Union.]


[Later Note: It occurs to me that I should also direct you to this fine review by Aaron Hillis at GreenCine Daily, from which two of the above images are filched - my favorite line: Dutronc's cuckolded husband "puts the 'imp' in impotence."]