Cast
THE RAFT OF THE 'MEDUSA' (A Tearful Comedy)
Screenplay
Music
Directed, photographed and edited by
The year 192...
Got a screwdriver in your handbag?
I am a teacher, not a locksmith.
It we stay longer, it's double price.
It'll take an hour to undo all these buttons.
Stupid, they're not real buttons, just an ornament.
Did you ring, sir?
You're hearing things.
Why don't you write to mother
so she wouldn't have to ask me about you?
I haven't got the money for the postage.
Stop playing the fool.
I am your brother, not your guardian.
This thing can't fail.
They are like children:
naive and fat - and full of money.
They always take me around the factory first.
We talk about electricity. They praise Tesla:
one of ours got to the top.
It'll go like this: we take seats in the office,
I offer a cigar and show them
the latest Siemens engines in the catalogue.
We calculate the money saved and the profits.
We puff cigars...
They complain they live like savages:
there's no culture,
nobody understands them.
They leaf through the catalogue
and come across your photo.
It got there as if by accident.
Surprise!
They slobber.
And then I say:
This is...
an acquaintance of mine from Petrovo.
A clean, refined,
and cultivated young lady.
But she's very lonely.
Put on an innocent expression.
They have a special weakness for it.
Once more.
I trust the Americans,
but...
Safe is safe.
I'm fed up with all this pettiness!
Don't overdo it.
Put on your dress.
You ladies catch cold in a jiffy.
I need it like a hole in the head.
Were you scared the other day
when the comet nearly hit the Earth?
Scared? Why?
When will you stop pretending to be an iceberg?
But you like your icy sister. I know you do.
Give me some money.
My dear sister:
this is just a loan.
And for the last time.
Look what you've done! Bad luck.
The works of charity:
To feed the hungry.
To give water to the thirsty.
To clothe the naked.
To shelter strangers.
To nurse the ill.
To visit prisoners.
To bury dead paupers.
The works of spiritual charity.
What's this noise?
The vicar asked me to go over Catechism with them.
The presumptuous fat drone!
Our job is to teach them the three R's!
And you?
He's found himself a fool. you got hoarse from zeal.
You're a Catholic, forget this Orthodox rubbish.
They've brought provisions.
But they forget our pay three months in a row.
Go home!
Doesn't the sight of this give you the creeps?
What? The flour?
Why?
'Why'? It means a year of your life.
The wood turns to ashes and smoke. The food...
Forty more times and it's closing time.
Tombstone and worms.
But I won't have it. No, I won't!
What can we do?
We'll see.
What's flour doing here? Am I to bake my bread?
You're always angry.
Gasa!
Get four boys and take the sacks to the baker's.
Tell him: from Miss Ljiljana, like last year.
Are we really going to hear something?
Done.
The loudspeaker doesn't work.
Miss Kristina, get a passport.
I am taking you abroad to Berlin,
where debauchery reigns.
You don't mind debauchery, I hope?
Or would you rather go... to Moscow?
The papers say it's quite interesting there now.
What is it we can't live without? Who knows?
Food.
Money. -Air.
We can't live without air.
That's right, air.
I've dismissed my classes.
Had enough for today.
Remember: without air.
The air consists of oxygen and nitrogen.
In breathing, we use oxygen.
The candle uses oxygen, too. So does the mouse.
When we've spent all the oxygen, there's no life.
Watch now.
I recognized you at once. Your brother...
Is he ill? -No, he's well.
I left my car outside the village.
Excuse me, I'll get mud all over the place.
I know this requires tact.
You are a nice girl,
everything should be discreet.
We'll settle things easily.
Haven't you got...
I don't drink.
Of course.
Miss Ljiljana, you've got such beautiful legs.
I noticed them in the photo.
Are you mad?
Your brother said we're kindred souls. Lonely.
I haven't got a brother.
This is a school! A Temple of Education!
I'm an honest girl. Don't touch me!
I'm not touching, look.
We educate children. How dare you talk about legs?
I'll be silent as a grave. Especially about the legs.
Florica, get the policeman. -No!
I'll make up for the inconvenience.
We're respectable girls.
Our father died for the country.
LATER ON
Write to your brother not to send people here.
I'll lick the stamp.
He could've killed you, ripped our bellies open.
Stop raving!
A little fright, but then, look - 1 100 dinars.
You're mad. They'll put you in a strait-jacket.
I don't mind - if I have my fling first.
'A new life will begin!'
'War - that's over.'
'I'm sick of mechanical power.'
'I hope everything is going to look'
'like coloured pictures in the Farmer's Almanac'
'with busy vinegrowers at one end'
'and baskets full of grapes at the other.'
'Who's coming?'
'A new era!'
What do you think?
Pure Wordsworth. Minus rhymes.
It sounds good to me.
Hop in! What do we have the car for?
Ljiljana!
Ljiljana! Visitors!
Meet my friends from Belgrade.
Didn't you tell him not to send any more clients?
Stupid, don't you see they're not 'clients'?
Get acquainted.
X-1 .
X-2.
X-3.
What kind of names are these?
They are joking.
They're artists.
Don't insult us.
I am Misic.
Aleksa. Glad to meet you. Ristic.
Borivoje Lazarevic.
Kristina Polic.
Ljiljana.
ls your headmaster still in hospital? -Apoplexy.
He can only move the big toe of his left foot.
Got it in the tongue, too. -Marvellous.
How do you like Misic's coffin?
Dreamboat!
I'll have to learn how to drive.
You should have studied to be an engineer.
Misic is starting a new art movement.
Let them think in peace.
Go to hell - all of you!
What an anachronism: beside electric guns,
an electric eye, and rotary printing presses
the poet sings about chrysanthemums
and waters them with his sweetheart's tears,
while being desperately blind to everything else.
He doesn't see his soul is a big spittoon,
full of tubercular spittle.
Misic!
Aleksa knows I'm not aiming at him.
Here you are.
Furthermore:
Our every word should be a poisonous injection.
Pure cyanide!
It must provoke reaction,
protest, alarm.
The European is a dancer on the burning tightrope
strung between the Kremlin and the Eiffel Tower.
Oh, the Eiffel Tower!
The Eiffel Tower!
People jump off it all the time.
I saw a lunatic smash himself three metres from me.
He wanted to fly.
He ruined my only suit.
I walked around Paris all in stains.
Paris must be beautiful.
Beautiful - schmutiful!
Introducing me, Tristan Tzara used to say:
Our friends in Belgrade don't wear a carnation
in the buttonhole, but a lump of human brain.
LATER
I've put you up.
I see you're getting along fabulously.
It's time for me to set out,
but let me eternalize you first.
Poses!
OK, poses.
We should all be in the picture.
All!
Can't this camera take photos by itself?
There, she'll do it.
She should hold it like this and press the button.
Kodak does the rest.
What's up? -She's afraid it'll steal our souls.
It won't. There's no soul anyway.
How do you say 'now' in Rumanian? -Acum.
Kodak will now eat up the old woman and her smile.
One - two - three!
... and the smile on the face of the tiger!
But this sun will melt the dark chamber
and the celluloid plate.
At last the camera made the kill
when the old woman showed two prehistoric teeth.
Nature is wonderful.
Nature is obsolete.
Steel and glass are the flowers of the future.
Reading is the only thing that keeps me alive.
I am sure you love Presern.
I am sure you miserable whiner.
You throw everything on the dump. -Pardon?
You throw everything on the dump.
I am a little sorry.
I'm sorry, too. Sometimes.
One can find useful things in the dump.
Must it be like that? -Definitely.
Kristina, this will help you understand:
There was a ship, packed with passengers,
her name was 'Medusa'.
A huge wave smashed her.
The raft was too small for all the survivors.
They pushed each other off the raft,
cut the fingers clinging to the planks.
But even those on the raft barely survived,
drinking their own blood,
a draught a day.
I'll show you the picture. -No, please, don't.
Do you think I could write poems?
Of course.
Come along!
Aleksa! Not under the tree!
You know so many things,
you should know a tree attracts lightning.
It's healthy to drink electric milk.
Nothing's happened.
How can you say that -
when I love you!
But you think I am a romantic ninny, don't you?
Don't!
Not on the mouth.
I don't care, I don't care!
I stole your bloodstained handkerchiefs
and kissed them all night.
Gentlemen, mail!
At last.
Coffee with cream coming up.
And rose petals in honey -
for Aleksa only.
The provincial circus turned us into pigs.
Dulled by fat, we'll forget our mission.
What's that?
Flattering regards from Marinetti.
Mussolini's jester! No business with him
since the fascist burned down the Slovene house
in Trieste and threw two men off the third floor.
Look! The spitting image of your latest painting.
Shall I rejoice or cry?
Where does it come from?
Hannover. From Kurt Schwitters.
Inviting us to take part in an exhibition.
He has also invited...
Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy,
Teige.
Not bad at all. Distinguished company.
And where did this invitation find you?
What do you mean, where? Here.
In the village of Petrovo. That's the point.
You're stuck in the dunghill up to your neck,
with hens scratching around,
pigs burrowing...
Look at him!
What's the use of his talent in the Balkans?
No panic, please.
The European merry widow will be glad to marry
the Balkan barbaro-genius
who'll fertilize her.
I know your everyday prayer:
'Give us skyscrapers,'
'millions of cars and engines,'
'Our Mother Technology.'
Here a skyscraper would sink into the mud.
Your 'machine art' will wilt very soon.
What else can you expect
in a country like this blessed kingdom
where 'machine' means a box of matches.
Remember: life and art should be pleasure.
Look who's speaking!
Look at yourself in the mirror!
Wait a minute!
This might be the trumpet of destiny.
Are you the owner of the vehicle?
I'm sure you've recognized me.
I am Znidarsic the Giant,
the strongest man of the Balkans and Asia Minor.
This is my assistant,
Miss Nadezda.
Yes?
I have some business to discuss with you.
Don't worry - you won't lose.
Alojzij Znidarsic doesn't owe anything to anybody.
Another Slovene?
Incredible!
There are the happiest days of my life.
I can see,
you're all swollen from happiness.
Everybody, look here!
Step on it!
Switch off!
This is to prove
that a Serb is stronger than 15 mechanical horses.
And the Serb happens to be - a Slovene!
Kristina, how do you like your countryman?
He's cute.
We intended to go on a tour anyway.
If we unite, it'll be like the best cinema.
Don't think I've got anything against art.
I've got a strong artistic urge myself.
Of course, everybody is an artist.
And vice versa: nobody's an artist.
And vice versa. -Wait a minute!
How's that? 'Vice versa' -
then again 'vice versa'...
Giant, don't worry: all the profit goes to you.
Have you got a gun?
A gun? Yes. I've got one. What for?
I've just had an idea.
Bravo, Giant!
I nearly fainted with excitement.
Hurray for scarlet fever!
Hurray for apoplexy!
Look how they carry on. Schoolteachers!
Nadezda, don't aggravate me.
Or else, get out and find yourself someone else.
There are people who will respect and understand me.
What a sucker you are, Lojzi!
You only think about which one to jump.
Kristina or that hot pants.
Don't forget we are a joint stock company.
Joint stock!
Without me, you'd still be eating coal in the mine.
Half of everything - my sweat and blood!
I can take a saw and cut everything in two.
The car, your fine English suit...
I'll cut YOU in two as well -
and who's going to pay to see half of the Giant?
Joint stock, Giant!
Talk, Nadezda, just you talk.
Giant!
I know one Slovene poem by heart.
If you don't listen to Nadezda,
this will be your destiny:
Once I ploughed land under the sky.
Now I dig coal under the ground.
Once a sunny field was in front of me.
Now, carrying the lamp, I hasten into the gloom.
For 38 years I've been burrowing like a mole:
Pits on the right, pits on the left.
High is the sun,
High is the sky.
Far away is the village,
and far away the singing bells.
Instructive, eh?
Borivoje,
don't be stupid.
Pardon, monsieur.
Aleksa, don't.
Not here.
Don't you like it anymore?
I do... but not here.
SEVERAL DAYS LATER
Combat is the only victory!
All against faint-heartedness and degeneration!
The artist is the dynamo of society!
Giant, Giant, Giant!
Ten minutes of exercise and New Art every day,
and you'll become like Znidarsic the Giant!
Down with the dirty rags og namby-pamby poetry!
Art for life!
The strongest must win!
The Balkan art is no utopia!
FOR EXAMPLE:
It's my turn now!
Buyrum clock watchmaker flint
overfed street songs of lace
meatless Wednesday is proclaimed
movement of Mayors's fences
paroxysm of yatagans ultimate celibacy
hotahatari hotahatari
hydroplane sine of the seventh heaven
akatsuki akatsuki
I will consider this an applause.
SAVING ENERGY
Hello. -You here? -Business.
Is the gentleman a new member of the troupe?
You must have recognized me.
I'm Znidarsic the Giant,
the strongest man in the Balkans
and Central Europe.
Of course. And what's this?
This is the health- preserving armour.
If you're not encased in tinplate,
life power leaks through the pores in the skin.
Especially at night.
The tinplate stops radiation
and sends it back into the body:
out through one hole, in through another.
Thus warmth and salt are not wasted.
Salt is crucial. Salted meat doesn't rot.
That's why his assistant is all black and blue.
Giant, hurry up!
ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CLASSICS
We are pulling Shakespeare's Latin beard!
We are cutting Kant's navel!
B. Popovic, J. Ducic and Miroslav Krleza
are thrown off the steamer of modernity!
That's right!
NJEGOa, the author of THE MOUNTAIN WREATH
How many of you have the Mountain Wreath at home?
Splendid!
Keep it and use it in case of war
following our example.
Attention!
It's a live round!
Shame!
Only sick minds spit on sacred things.
You need a file to sharpen a dull saw.
You need a file to sharpen a dull brain.
You need a file to poke an idiot in the ribs.
Blood is the most hygienic bath!
Cultural Bolsheviks!
From the blood- soaked earth
shoot up toadstools of unacy!
It's a civil duty
to hunt morons in the jungles of idiocy!
DECLARATION OF LOVE
In remembrance
of our common triumph.
You're beautiful in your new dress.
Giant! Giant!
May I have a look?
A look at what?
Let's see what 'Politika' has to say about us.
'An Idiotic Tour.'
The beginning is promising.
'Mr Misic hopes to find in this country'
'ten thousand fools like himself'
'to promote among them his -'
'artistic revolution.'
'No matter how little we think of this State,'
'we must speak in its defence:'
'Misic will never find 10 000 Misics'
'in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.'
Excellent. Praise would be the worst insult.
I'm not the strongest man in the Balkans
and, tomorrow, in Europe
to be pestered all the time.
Nadezda, if you're jealous of Ljiljana, here you are,
fight it out like gentlemen.
Nobody's going to tutor me!
I ran away from home when I was eleven
because I loved freedom and dignity.
Comrade Misic?
These are official letters from Gosizdat.
And here's a letter from Mayakovsky.
What's the matter?
I expected... H. Kluge.
I am H. Kluge.
You imagined a Hubert or a Helmuth.
My name's Hanna Kluge.
All my books are signed H. Kluge.
Should I boast that I am a woman?
This is supposed to be a letter from Mayakovsky?
I don't understand.
It can't be for me.
It's written to a woman and signed 'Puppy'.
There's also a drawing of a little dog.
The handwriting is Mayakovsky's though.
Poor Vladimir.
He must have mixed up the letters.
He's desperately in love with a woman
who thinks about nothing but French perfumes,
French chocolates and French fashions.
But he's strong.
He lies to himself and the others that he is strong.
No, he's a giant made of kissel.
Kissel?
A kind of Russian fruit pudding.
My dear Misic, when I fly over tiny white kingdoms
like yours and the Rumanian,
I am a high society aviatrix
about to break the record
on the Vienna-Moscow Vienna-route.
But I'm not going back to Moscow.
The fault's probably mine.
The revolution, as my friend Brecht said,
interested me as much as the Vesuvius interests
a man who wants to boil his kettle on it.
What time is it?
My watch has stopped.
Gorgeous! I wish I had one like this.
Let's swap then. -Oh, really?
Look how Mr Capital fattens.
On your sweat,
your blood,
your muscles, bones and lungs.
He gobbles your brains and nibbles your hearts.
He'll eat up the dirt from under your nails
and the nails themselves.
Workers! Proletarians!
Let me ask you a childish question.
Why aren't your calluses diamonds or dynamite?
Misic! That wasn't part of the deal!
Why didn't you take my name off the roof?
I respect property and order.
Why fight the authorities when we're doing so well?
The papers say your New Art spells Communism!
Comrades
we offer you our hand! -Stop it!
You were a blacksmith and a miner yourself.
Precisely! I don't want to go into a mine again.
I was suffocating!
How did it turn out?
Splendid. The audience didn't like it though.
Did you rent this in a theatre?
I am the owner. Though I am not that fat.
I know, that's for the propaganda impact.
Whose idea was it? -Mine.
Surprising, isn't it? With such a noisy leader.
Ingenious. You are a born publicity genius.
Nowadays an artist has no other choice than advertising
either industry or revolution.
Here, the moment isn't exactly propitious
for the latter activity.
Therefore, Mr Lazarevic -
you know, I've read your articles -
come and work for me.
You'll tide over this unpleasant time,
I'll give you excellent pay,
modern chromium-plated furniture from Germany,
and a free hand.
Later, when the revolution wins
and you become Commissar of Arts, you'll pay me back.
I doubt it.
I'm very ungrateful by nature.
Even better.
Think it over.
I've thought it over.
A publicity manager must take quick decisions.
I accept.
That treacherous rat Borivoje
is dancing in front of the Golden Calf.
Mixed metaphors: calves don't go with rats.
Besides, you taught us there is no difference
between a poem and a house,
a painting and a shoe, if they are well made.
Giant!
We know the Serbian revolutionary spirit.
N. Pasic and other university students
demonstrated in the theatre against a reactionary play.
They were blowing candy whistles.
When the police barged in,
they crunched and swallowed the whistles.
They looked progressive and had their sweets too.
Later, Pasic became Prime Minister.
Why do you fume?
We're all waiting for a buyer to domesticate us.
Never!
Look:
I press the button - explosion -
you fly 50 metres and fall into the net.
I'm a little afraid. -Don't be.
What's wrong with me?
Broken three times. I didn't even feel it.
My backbone is reinforced concrete!
In the mine I lifted a waggon full of coal.
We'll appear in Chicago yet.
Giant, look! The supreme attraction!
We'll have to go back.
If you Slovenes don't know the way to Trieste.
This is the way, but I didn't invent the snow.
The air is like fire. So cold that it burns.
Surrender! Surrender!
In the name of the law:
Surrender! Hands up!
You're under arrest.
Hands up!
I have a clean record.
If Nadezda has slandered me, I'll strangle her!
Don't move! -I'm just gesticulating a bit.
Stop! Stop!
It's a mistake!
These are not the Comintern courriers.
You're late. This one is already cold.
It's not true!
You're lying!
What are you doing?
I want to see if I'm going to cry.
You are not human!
It's strange to live, it's strange not to live.
Stand up.
Be seated.
Are you diligent?
Robar?
Yes, sir.
Are you afraid of work? -No, sir. -And why not?
Work will make us honest people.
Excellent.
Carry on.
Have you practised with canes?
Yes, sir.
It's of the utmost importance.
Our country can't afford expensive guide-dogs.
The needs are enormous.
Follow me!
Vrhovec!
The blind need no light. Nonsense!
We must economize.
A penny a day
keeps poverty away.
Dissipation undermines the state.
Sir, unfortunately, some of us are not blind.
One would like to read something occasionaly.
You'll get electric torches
and a battery every week.
Now, back to work!
Tempus fugit.
Miss Polic!
Are you aware you have been suspended
from all educational institutions of the kingdom?
Pardon?
I can't hear you.
I am.
Only the entreaties of your respectable parents
got us to employ you in this Slovene home.
And now - you receive a letter from abroad.
If I am not mistaken, this is a foreign stamp.
I don't like it at all.
You risk contamination by subversive ideas.
This is not to happen again.
You understand?
On my last inspection I found this in your locker.
How dare you?
It's my duty.
I leafed through this 'work'.
I don't like such writing.
Rading it, I felt as if I had lifted
the lid of the privy and pushed my nose inside.
Don't think I'm an autocrat.
I have consulted my friend Serko,
a doctor of philosophy and medicine.
It is his opinion, and he's an expert,
that such writers belong in a lunatic asylum.
Confiscated!
Sleep, Robar.
Things will change. -When?
I don't know.
There may be cakes for lunch tomorrow.
Dearest Kristina,
it was difficult to get your address.
How life has suddenly changed.
Only yesterday everything was possible,
but now people look like walking corpses.
The air is heavy.
I hear Misic has disappeared.
The last time I saw him, he said:
If I am to be the last citizen in this country,
then this country is the last for me.
I'd like to have Aleksa's poems published.
How much would it cost? I'll send you dollars.
I met a Dutch planter from Indochina.
After five minutes he said:
'You are beautiful and strange.'
'I am rich and I love curios.'
'So'?
Now I have a mink coat and a diamond necklace.
Do you want me to find you a millionaire?
We'll live together in Saigon smoking opium!
When you get this, I'll be in the middle of the sea.
I am very unhappy,
but, who's happy?
Destroy this letter.
Love Lilly.
Seven children were injured in the fire.
The cause of the fire was never established.
While rescuing children
Kristina received severe burns.
Her face was disfigured.
She lost her eyesight.
She spent the next 27 years in the home.
She was very popular as she tried to help everybody.
In 1946, some artists came
to shoot a film about the blind children.
That morning Kristina died.
So that the shooting wouldn't be obstructed,
her body was put in the cellar
beside American tins
and a heap of sprouting potatoes.
She was buried the next day.