Deserters and Pilgrims

Juraj Jakubisko (b. 1938) came to study at FAMU in Prague at the very end of the 1950s, and his extremely successful student films gave no real idea that the main themes of his future work would focus on the landscape and, above all, the soul of his native Eastern Slovakia. Emigrant´s Song (1964) was an exception, a nostalgic reminiscence of his compatriots, poor peasant-farmers who left for America in search of work after the First World War. But what looked like a mere glance back or a possible farewell, proved to be a strong emotion, a bond with roots which couldn’t be broken. Even if he wanted to suppress strong ties with his place of origin, he was only able to do this temporarily, as evinced by one of two brothers, the artist Juraj, in Jakubisko’s feature debut The Crucial Years (1967). He tries to live as a bohemian in Prague, and to attune himself to the freethinking spirit of Europe, but the tragic death of his brother and, above all, the following burial ritual in their native village, leads him to find both himself and an inner understanding of the true values of life.
How are we to understand Jakubisko’s claim that, in his subsequent three-story film Deserters and Pilgrims (1968), he had “finally returned to his fellow countrymen and the mountains of home” when, in this allegory, he depicts three different wars? The physical and tangible losses are more terrible with each story; in the last tale, a vision of the world after an atomic catastrophe, Death itself personified, triumphantly celebrating and feasting in both previous wars, must desperately implore the few who remain to stop the destruction in order to preserve life on Earth. Villagers always lived in rural tranquillity, in their cottages, in the fields; they came together in taverns round a large table – until they were seized by the frenzy of war. In a thrice, these pure and gentle people separated into two camps, cruel murderers and victims, the evil unleashed seemed to intensify from some bottomless source and could not be stopped; those who, the day before, were good neighbours, were now sowing doom with a light heart, gleefully awaiting the suffering of the innocent. The shots of the landscape, imposing and indifferent to the destructive passion of man, however, speak less of Jakubisko’s “return” than of the temper of the film’s metaphors and symbols, than of the colourful harmony and artistic composition of his photographic images. They are poetically naïve and brutal, like the words of the gipsy ballad cited in the film, and the stylisation of expression is reminiscent of folk glass paintings – almost too brightly coloured but still gentle, with the sharp colours and eloquent brushstrokes of an artist who, using condensation and abbreviation, is able to capture the fundamental human situation.
The film Deserters and Pilgrims is the first to betray Jakubisko’s tendency to move away from a realistic depiction of the world. Events from specific eras are recognisable, except that communication is achieved via an abstract idea and the mediation of a subjective feeling which seeks the strength of poetic expression. Jakubisko’s subsequent films, completed by the end of the 1960s, when he was forced into silence for many years, are formally much more akin to poetry than prose: the plot is suppressed, the depiction isn’t borne by the logic of events, but by the logic of ideas and extreme personal opinion: “I, Juraj Jakubisko, Slovak film director, will tell you about people who wanted to be mad…”, a childish voice tells viewers at the beginning of the film Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969), while, for absolutely no illustrative purpose, the screen shows a crowd of children running, pulling a huge, billowing sheet behind them. The sheet could symbolise many things, like almost everything in this film. This “annunciation” heralds the fact that the director, himself, controls the space of this work, unfettered, constructing his visions and intimate experiences on a level with reality, and demonstrating how securely both these opposite poles are clinched together.
The associative stream and sequence of shots and scenes also dominate another phase of Jakubisko’s work, beginning with the ambitious The Thousand Year Old Bee (1983). On the one hand, from this point on he would be bound to a clearly defined theme with numerous, elaborately worked plot layers; on the other hand, a base such as this wouldn’t prevent him from indulging in his imagination. Perhaps, this is even more evident here than in his previous films – poems which resembled the exalted cries of a wounded soul, venerably mindful of nothing but itself. In The Thousand Year Old Bee, describing the lives of three generations of simple village folk, the effective images of everyday existence intermingle with passages which capture the dreams and emotions of individual members, or bring to life visions of Jakubisko’s explosive imagination. An Angel and Death walk through the landscape, a shower of frogs, instead of rain, falls from the heavens, the sky darkens under a cloud of bats, auguring misfortune, like the sudden storm which whips up in the middle of an idyllic sunny day, a heart wrought in iron glows red, as if pulsating with passionate blood… Dying resembles phantasmic delight, love resembles unpleasant giddiness. The living encounter the dead, the gigantic bee symbolises human futility and helplessness, obstinacy and indomitability. Who could distinguish the filmmaker’s visions from the fantasy of his heroes? Who could determine the borders of reality? It is here that we most sense Jakubisko’s strong bonds with the place he was born and where he grew up, his deep-rooted attachment to folklore, to the human spirit of his homeland. Jakubisko is the only representative of magic realism in Central Europe, an artist who spontaneously bridges the chasms separating imagined worlds from real worlds, separating nature from civilisation, the tragic from the comic, birth and creation from doom and destruction, the earth-bound from the monumental… His uniquely suggestive films uncover the mythical dimensions of human existence and cast man into cosmic permanence. Zdena Škapová JURAJ JAKUBISKO
Filmography - full-length feature films: Kristove roky / The Crucial Years, 1967
Zbehovia a pútnici / The Deserters and Pilgrims, 1968
Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni / Birds, Orphans and Fools, 1969
Dovidenia v pekle, priatelia / See You in Hell, Friends, 1970/1990
Postav dom, zasaď strom / Build a House, Plant a Tree, 1979
Nevera po slovensky / Infidelity the Slovak Way, 1981
Tisícročná včela / The Thousand Year Old Bee, 1983
Perinbaba / Mother Carey, 1985
Pehavý Max a strašidlá / Freckled Max and the Ghosts, 1987
Frankensteins Tante / Teta / The Aunt, TV, 1987
Sedím na konári a je mi dobre / Sitting on a Branch I Am Fine, 1989
Takmer ružový príbeh / Almost a Pink Story, TV, 1990
Lepšie byť bohatý a zdravý ako chudobný a chorý / Better to Be Rich and Healthy Than Poor and Sick, 1992
Nejasná zpráva o konci světa / The Ambigious Report about the End of the World, 1996
Filmography - short and documentary films: Poslední nálet /The Last Air Raid, 1960
Každý deň má svoje meno /Each Day Has Its Name, 1961
Strieborný vietor / Silvery Wind, 1961
Mlčení / Silence, 1963
Tri rozprávky / Three Fairy-Tales, TV, 1963
Vrtulka /The Windmill,  TV-1963
Vysťahovalci / Emigrant´s Song, TV, 1964
Korytári / Through-Markers, TV, 1965
Déšť / Rain, 1965
Čekají na Godota / Waiting for Godot, 1966
Stavba storočia / The Building of the Century, 1972
Ondrej Nepela / Ondrej Nepela, 1974
Výstavba tranzitného plynovodu / The Construction of the Gas Pipeline, TV, 1974
Omnia vyváža / Omnia, 1974
Slovensko - krajina pod Tatrami / Slovakia, the Country Below the Tatra Mountains, TV, 1975
Filmy v mesiaci ČSSP / Films in the Month of Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship, 1976
Bubeník Červeného kríža / The Drummer of the Red Cross
Tri vrecia cementu a živý kohút / Three Sacks of Cement and a Living Cock, TV, 1977
Dožinky ´77 / The Harvest Festival in 1977, 1978
Eva, Eva / Eva and Eva, TV, 1978
ZKL / ZKL, 1978
Maľované na dreve / Painted on Wood, TV, 1979
Československo tradičný obchodný partner ZSSR / Czechoslovakia, a Traditional Trade Partner of the USSR, 1981
GEN: Václav Klaus pohledem Juraje Jakubiska / GEN: Václav Klaus Through the Eyes of Juraj Jakubisko, TV, 1993
GEN: Josef Svoboda pohledem Juraje Jakubiska / GEN: Josef Through the Eyes of Juraj Jakubisko, TV, 1994
Nad Prahou sa blýska / Lightning over Prague, TV, 1999
GEN: Vratislav Kulhánek pohledem Juraje Jakubiska / GEN. Vratislav Kulhánek Through the Eyes of Juraj Jakubisko, TV, 2001
GEN: Zdeněk Tůma pohledem Juraje Jakubiska / GEN. Zdeněk Tůma Through the Eyes of Juraj Jakubisko, TV, 2001