The Deserter and the Nomads
Edgar Cochran ✝️

Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ Patron

The Deserter and the Nomads 1968

★★★★★ Liked

Watched 03 Jul 2014

***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***

How to describe the undescribable? The only fair first step seems to be utilizing descriptions of the describable and known.

Auteur Juraj Jakubisko's style:

- Prophesized the gigantic scope of Kusturica's spectacles
- Had the anarchic disorder of Jancsó's anti-war testaments
- Predated Terayama's ferocity of the wilderness and symbolisms to unravel the psyche
- Featured Kalatozov's hand-held camera style and tracking shots
- Used animals like Jodorowsky would
- Features nudity as confidently as Greenaway
- Appreciates nature visually with the passion of Malick
- Predicted Lopushanskiy's scope of an apocalypse in Dead Man's Letters (1986)
- Colored the screen with silent-film-like tints to separate time settings and accentuate emotions

The Deserter and the Nomads consists of three segments:

1) WWI.- A gypsy deserts the army to return to his town for a wedding. To protect himself, he dresses up as a woman. However, the Hussars spots him, unleashing violent confrontations in the village.
2) WWII.- Russian partisans kill an old man suspected of being a German spy. The news that the war is over scatters. Celebrations begin. But a German unit is unaware of this, and stumbles upon the celebration.
3) Post-apocalyptic nuclear holocaust.- Two survivors begin a search for other people.

Gipsy music, madness, violence, war, hell, faith, God, nature, thunders, fire, rain, Death, metaphysical fantasies, hypnotic imagery, sensory overload, betrayal, cowardice, fear, symbolisms, human condition allegories, cognitive dissonance, dances of death, a glimpse of Paradise, a reunion in Hell, God save us all...

Is it possible to cry in a film beyond sadness, nostalgia or an equivalent heartwarming feeling? Yes it is. How about powerlessness, or simple awe? Here's a proof.

100/100

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