Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And on
Speaker 1: today's episode we're going to be talking about Fruit of Paradise,
Speaker 1: what I would characterize as a biblical surrealist comedy drama
Speaker 1: film made in the late sixties by the Check new
Speaker 1: wave of director Vera Chitoalova. Now I'm going to go
Speaker 1: ahead and apologize to Check speakers if I'm not saying
Speaker 1: her name the way you would. I searched all over
Speaker 1: and unfortunately just ended up hearing people say it like
Speaker 1: seven different ways. So Chittollova's my best shot. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say. And I think this movie is going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit different than the kinds of
Speaker 1: films we usually talk about on here for for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons. So this movie Fruit of Paradise is
Speaker 1: a lot of things at once. First of all, it is,
Speaker 1: in its context, a Check film made against the backdrop
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixty eight Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia,
Speaker 1: and Tittalova herself has said that this film can be
Speaker 1: interpreted through the lens of that invasion. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think also the consequent clamped down on freedoms, including free
Speaker 1: expression of artists and filmmakers. But if you're looking for
Speaker 1: like direct, heavy handed political allegory where it's like odd,
Speaker 1: you know this this one here is the is the
Speaker 1: premier of the Soviet Union, and this one here is
Speaker 1: what it doesn't really have that, you're not going to
Speaker 1: find it because from scene to scene, I would say
Speaker 1: that the main characteristic of Fruit of Paradise is the
Speaker 1: wandering and humorous exploration of an unconstrained mind, sort of
Speaker 1: hopping from one strange image and situation to another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's fair. I think that's fair. Uh. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, despite having those characteristics, this movie
Speaker 1: also does have a thematic frame, which is that it
Speaker 1: is in some sense a very loose retelling of the
Speaker 1: Garden of Eden story from the Book of Genesis, except
Speaker 1: for most of the movie, after an amazing opening sequence
Speaker 1: that's a little more like a psychedelic direct retelling of
Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden story. For most of the runtime,
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve are represented by Josef and Ava to
Speaker 1: modern people wearing modern clothes, and the Garden of Eden
Speaker 1: is represented as a central European health spa where couples
Speaker 1: chase balloons on the sandy beach of a rock quarry. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then also the snake or the devil they remember.
Speaker 1: In the actual biblical narrative, it never says the snake
Speaker 1: is a devil of any kind. He's just a snake.
Speaker 1: But here I think it has both valances. Here, the
Speaker 1: snake or the devil is Robert, a clumsy, awkward, frankly
Speaker 1: almost adorable gentleman with a red beard, wearing a red
Speaker 1: suit who rides a bicycle, falls over a lot, and
Speaker 1: is probably a serial killer who murders women, and he
Speaker 1: really loves rolling a big rock through the bog. He
Speaker 1: has a strong doctor who character vibe to him. I
Speaker 1: would say he has that kind of energy to him,
Speaker 1: not saying necessarily a doctor a doctor himself, but I
Speaker 1: could see him being the Master or something. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm familiar with the Master. I was going
Speaker 1: to say his energy kind of reminds me of the
Speaker 1: actor who they got to play Microft Holmes in the
Speaker 1: BBC Sherlock. Yes, smart, gaddish. I think it's a good comparison.
Speaker 1: By the way, a lot of great actors have played
Speaker 1: microft homes over the years. I was just glancing. Of
Speaker 1: course you have Charles Gray, but also like Peter Cushing, Um,
Speaker 1: you have Resa Fauns. I mean, it's a whole list
Speaker 1: of wonderful actors, but it's definitely a type. There's a
Speaker 1: type of energy. Also, another thing that distinguishes this movie
Speaker 1: is that while we've done a lot of really strange
Speaker 1: films on Weird House Cinema before, I'm pretty sure this
Speaker 1: is our first completely non narrative film, meaning it only
Speaker 1: really has a story in the loosest possible sense. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the real organizing principle here is not plot. I
Speaker 1: would say the theme, Like the movie is made out
Speaker 1: of a series of weird impressionistic vignettes and images that
Speaker 1: are chained together by associations. So you might have a
Speaker 1: clipping herbs in the garden of Eden, and then the
Speaker 1: devil almost peas on her, and then she's trying to
Speaker 1: bury some carrots in the sand, and then the sand
Speaker 1: kind of takes over and the health spa ensemble is
Speaker 1: now doing a bizarre balloon volleyball ballet in the sand
Speaker 1: at a rock quarry. By the way, not on a
Speaker 1: like natural beach, um, And so it goes from thing
Speaker 1: to things like that. And personally I loved this movie.
Speaker 1: But fair warning that if you've never watched a feature
Speaker 1: length non narrative film before, it's a different kind of
Speaker 1: experience and one that really shows you the power of
Speaker 1: narrative storytelling, like how a conventional plot really helps keep
Speaker 1: your attention effortlessly while effortful attention would be requ aired
Speaker 1: in its absence. Uh. And Chittelovah did make more conventionally
Speaker 1: narrative driven films at different parts of her career, especially
Speaker 1: later in her career. In fact, she did a really
Speaker 1: odd looking uh sci fi horror movie in the late
Speaker 1: eighties that I may want to come back to at
Speaker 1: some point. But anyway, even if the idea of a
Speaker 1: feature length non narrative film isn't usually your cup of tea,
Speaker 1: I think it's worth giving Fruit of Paradise a chance.
Speaker 1: It is an absolutely bizarre, funny, delightful and thoughtful work
Speaker 1: of art. I think narrative in a film it's often like, um,
Speaker 1: it's like sweetener in a drink. You can have too
Speaker 1: much of it, uh, and you can think you have
Speaker 1: too much of it sometimes, But then every now and
Speaker 1: then a film comes along to remind you the purely
Speaker 1: dry experience, um is a little different and perhaps not
Speaker 1: for for all tastes, certainly. UM. So, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: an interesting film to to talk about because it definitely
Speaker 1: has its has it's weird. Uh, it's weirdness to it,
Speaker 1: and I love things about it. Um. But yeah, when
Speaker 1: you start looking at experimental art films, uh, you know
Speaker 1: that those are dangerous words. Experimental art film is dangerous
Speaker 1: as co starring George Eastman or something to that effect,
Speaker 1: because there are plenty of experimental art films out there
Speaker 1: that can be a chore to get through, uh if
Speaker 1: you're not in the right mindset. Uh. Some are pretty
Speaker 1: scandalous as well. And today's film certainly was considered a
Speaker 1: little bit too much by the Czechosloakian authorities of the time. Yeah, apparently,
Speaker 1: uh Tolova could not get films made for for years
Speaker 1: after doing this. The Soviet censors were not a fan.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting considered. One of the things I'll come
Speaker 1: back to later is that in other parts of the
Speaker 1: world and in other decades, UH censors were far more
Speaker 1: forgiving conser if a film had Adam and even it. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know they're like, oh, it's based on the Bible.
Speaker 1: Well then yes, then this is this is okay, this
Speaker 1: is your erotic statement can can exist on the screen
Speaker 1: because it is is biblically based. Uh that appeared that
Speaker 1: obviously didn't fly in Czechoslovakia. Uh in what was this
Speaker 1: nineteen Well, I think that might have been when it
Speaker 1: was released in the I think this was made in
Speaker 1: the late sixties. Late sixties, Czechoslovakia not ready for the
Speaker 1: surrealist m uh feminist take on Adam and Eve. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, um, I was watching part of an interview
Speaker 1: with Titolova where she was talking about the making of
Speaker 1: Fruit of Paradise, and so I think they were at
Speaker 1: least shooting part of it during the the invasion in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, at least according to this story, if
Speaker 1: I'm understanding it right, Because she's talking about how they
Speaker 1: were shooting parts of the movie in a sandstone quarry. Um,
Speaker 1: And she said, you know, they were shooting it sort
Speaker 1: of on the sly because she says, quote, in the
Speaker 1: meantime the occupation had started, but the place where they
Speaker 1: were shooting was quote outside the turmoil. I happened to
Speaker 1: be pregnant at the time. I learned about the occupation
Speaker 1: in maternal home, and at night, when I was breastfeeding
Speaker 1: my child, I heard the bombardiers. It was very early
Speaker 1: morning when the air fighters came into Prague. After that
Speaker 1: we were afraid we wouldn't be able to get out
Speaker 1: of the city. It was quite a risky trip we
Speaker 1: were driving against those tanks. Yeah. Yeah, obviously, I always
Speaker 1: have to to take into account the time period in
Speaker 1: the world out of which an environment out of which
Speaker 1: a film emerges. So yeah, there's some some fascinating backstory
Speaker 1: for for this one. Now, before we go any any
Speaker 1: further here, you might be wondering, well, where can I
Speaker 1: watch this film? Uh, perhaps you want to see Fruit
Speaker 1: of Paradise as well. Well, it is available on DVD,
Speaker 1: but you can also stream it on Criterion Channel. As
Speaker 1: I believe I've said before, there's a lot of weird
Speaker 1: and wonderful stuff on Criterion Channel. So if you want
Speaker 1: to watch the Three Colors trilogy, if you want to
Speaker 1: catch up on the works of the Karakasawa, Uh, done obviously.
Speaker 1: But you can also watch Elliott Gould in the boxing
Speaker 1: kangaroo movie in which the kangaroo is a human in
Speaker 1: a kind of uncanny kangaro root costume Matilda. You can
Speaker 1: watch a bunch of Godzilla films, you can watch Fiend
Speaker 1: without a Face, you can watch you can watch Eyes
Speaker 1: without a face, and much much more. So it's well
Speaker 1: worth that two week trial window no matter what you're
Speaker 1: you're looking for. Actually, it also has multiple films of
Speaker 1: very Chidlova, so I may end up watching more, including
Speaker 1: that that sci fi horror one from the eighties. Are
Speaker 1: you talking about Wolf's Hole? Yes, that one? That one
Speaker 1: looks very interesting. Yeah, I'd love to see, you know,
Speaker 1: what she does when she has the structure of genre
Speaker 1: to work with, because you know, when I think about
Speaker 1: the art films that i've that I like but also
Speaker 1: something I don't like, you know, there's generally some sort
Speaker 1: of trappings of genre there to give it, to help
Speaker 1: give it that structure, And this one has, you know,
Speaker 1: the mythic structure of the myth of Adam and Eve. Certainly,
Speaker 1: um and I can't imagine you know that this film
Speaker 1: without it. I mean that that's kind of its guiding framework. Uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'd love to see what she does with
Speaker 1: a with a kind of um rural camping snow horror movie.
Speaker 1: Warning A sort of vague spoilers here, but I think,
Speaker 1: as best I understand, Wolves Hole is sort of about
Speaker 1: like aliens who kidnap a bunch of children for like
Speaker 1: a for a mountain a winter a winter mountain camp,
Speaker 1: and then try to make them turn on each other.
Speaker 1: But it's maybe about the children discovering how to work
Speaker 1: together against their alien captors. Well, that sounds good. I
Speaker 1: like that. All right, Well, let's come back to Fruit
Speaker 1: of Paradise. Though um elevator pitch for this, I would
Speaker 1: I would summarize that, especially the middle portions of the
Speaker 1: film by saying, sometimes you chase the devil, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the devil chases you. Yeah, And sometimes you want to
Speaker 1: kill the devil, and sometimes the devil's gonna kill you,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the devil isn't going to kill you. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you're in love with the devil, yes, And sometimes
Speaker 1: the devil p's in your garden. That's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's have some some audio from this.
Speaker 1: I believe we have some trailer audio. H m hm,
Speaker 1: that is said, m h yeah. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the people and we we've already talked to
Speaker 1: You've already talked a good bit about Vera Chitalova here
Speaker 1: the director. Also she's credited with writer Dialogue. She lived
Speaker 1: through Check film director and writer of note, who often
Speaker 1: ran a file of state. Since there's her nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six surrealist comedy Daisies was banned and at one point, yeah,
Speaker 1: she was banned herself from making films. Other films of
Speaker 1: note include comedy The Inheritance of Uh and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say the full title here, and he's the
Speaker 1: English one, but it's like f off guys, go odd
Speaker 1: dead Day. I think it's good day, good Day. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's all run together. These are like it's the f
Speaker 1: and then off guys, good day anyway, surrealist comedy I'm
Speaker 1: to Understand. And The Seven Wolves Whole, which we already
Speaker 1: talked about, which is a psychological horror movie that or
Speaker 1: perhaps an alien film. I don't know. We haven't seen
Speaker 1: it yet, but it seems like it's very well regarded.
Speaker 1: I was reading getting some biographical details from her obituary
Speaker 1: in the New York Times by Margolite Fox, and so
Speaker 1: Chittilova was born in nineteen twenty nine in Ostrova, now
Speaker 1: part of the Czech Republic. UH. Czechis Floki when she
Speaker 1: lived there, and she went to university where she originally
Speaker 1: studied philosophy and apparently architecture UH, and then after that
Speaker 1: worked a interesting assortment of jobs. She was quote a
Speaker 1: technical draftsman, a photo retoucher, a fashion model, and finally
Speaker 1: quote clapper girl at the Czech National Film Studio. I
Speaker 1: think clapper girl refers to somebody who manages the film slates,
Speaker 1: you know, the slates that used to uh designate the
Speaker 1: beginning of each shot. But I read that she also
Speaker 1: just did odd jobs around the studio as well. UH.
Speaker 1: And it was apparently while managing slates at the National
Speaker 1: Film Studio that she became more interested in filmmaking and
Speaker 1: eventually went to film school at the Academy in Prague,
Speaker 1: where she was the only woman in her class. Chitalova's
Speaker 1: early career is often grouped with the movement known as
Speaker 1: the Check New Wave, which is a term used for
Speaker 1: a a style of boundary pushing filmmakers in Check Slovakia
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, UH characterized I think just by
Speaker 1: defiance of pre existing film conventions and kind of dissident
Speaker 1: attitude and personal freedom. So this might include more sort
Speaker 1: of casual, mundane, down to earth film subjects that were
Speaker 1: less the sort of lofty, pretentious films of the past.
Speaker 1: Or it might include totally avant garde films, avant garde techniques,
Speaker 1: nonlinear narratives, surrealism, absurdism, usually dissident politics, and satirical or
Speaker 1: dark comedy. And I think I would say the comedy
Speaker 1: is one of the most interesting elements to me because
Speaker 1: one of the things about Fruit of Paradise is that
Speaker 1: it's I would not say it's overtly a comedic film,
Speaker 1: at least not most of the time, because it's not
Speaker 1: packed with like jokes, but almost every scene is sort
Speaker 1: of humorous in some way. It's kind of like happening
Speaker 1: with a with a strange edge of irony, and and
Speaker 1: you can tell that the actors are like almost always
Speaker 1: about to break into laughter. I would say it definitely
Speaker 1: creates an air of levity that that that helps with
Speaker 1: with this film, because to come back to the to
Speaker 1: the Spirit's analogy, it's um it's like this cocktail has
Speaker 1: no sweetener in it. It's it's more like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the straight art, but there is a there is
Speaker 1: an umbrella put in it. There's a there's a nice
Speaker 1: garnish to it, and that is the comedy that provides
Speaker 1: a sense of levity. Uh and uh and I think
Speaker 1: and that that is something I really like about it.
Speaker 1: Like if this, if this had been like an ultra
Speaker 1: serious film, I I mean it just it would it
Speaker 1: would have been an entirely different film. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it would have been anywhere nearly as enjoyable. I
Speaker 1: would say, actually, the tone is exactly the opposite of
Speaker 1: what you would expect if somebody told you it is
Speaker 1: an avant garde retelling of the Adam and Eve story,
Speaker 1: So you'd think, okay, serious, heavy handed art film. But no, instead,
Speaker 1: this is like it's it's such a feeling of um,
Speaker 1: of amusement and lightness and freedom. Yeah, yeah, it's Uh.
Speaker 1: It also doesn't have that that crushing feel like you know,
Speaker 1: you read the the account of Adam and Eve. It um,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a downer. It's about the fall
Speaker 1: of man and and it has you know, all of
Speaker 1: the it also has all these other connotations of you know,
Speaker 1: they make you question the nature of God, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know the overtly um you know, anti feminine um
Speaker 1: attributes to the tale as well. Uh you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's Eve's fault for listening to a snake and and
Speaker 1: uh and and eating an apple and so forth. Uh So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not the kind of thing that you you might
Speaker 1: instantly think like this, this will be a nice light
Speaker 1: feminist art film. Yeah. And I think that spirit of
Speaker 1: freedom works really well with the Adam and Eve subject
Speaker 1: matter in multiple ways. So in one sense it comes
Speaker 1: through in that sense of irony that we have infusing
Speaker 1: every scene. But the other thing is about the like
Speaker 1: symbolic ambivalence of the story, because there are multiple things
Speaker 1: about the Adam and Eve story that you can take
Speaker 1: in diametrically opposed uh meanings. So like what is the
Speaker 1: what what is the role of the snake. You can
Speaker 1: look at the story in one way where the snake
Speaker 1: is the corruptor, the corruptor who you know, who gets
Speaker 1: them kicked out of the garden. But the other way
Speaker 1: of looking at it is that the snake is the
Speaker 1: prometheus figure. The snake is the one who tells them
Speaker 1: the truth that they can eat of the tree and
Speaker 1: it will not kill them to eat of it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that they have been they have been living a
Speaker 1: lie inside the garden. And I would say both readings
Speaker 1: of the story I think are found in this film. Now.
Speaker 1: Fruit of Paradise is not Chiallova's most famous film. I
Speaker 1: would say her most famous easily is a nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six surrealist comedy she made called Daisies, which is about
Speaker 1: two girls who are both named Marie. They are Marie
Speaker 1: one and Marie too, who essentially decide that the world
Speaker 1: is spoiled and wicked, and so they make a conscious
Speaker 1: decision to become spoiled and wicked in return. And from
Speaker 1: here they engage in a string of bizarre, high energy,
Speaker 1: surreal and decadent acts. Some reviewers have characterized these as pranks.
Speaker 1: I think that's true for some things they do in
Speaker 1: the movie, but it doesn't really capture other things like
Speaker 1: So this does include uh, like like pranking lecherous older men,
Speaker 1: but it also includes things like running around trying to
Speaker 1: snip each other's arms off with scissors, I think, and
Speaker 1: to some extent succeeding with the help of film editing
Speaker 1: techniques that move their arms around on the screen, or
Speaker 1: dancing around on the top of banquet tables, like stomping
Speaker 1: high heels on what British film critic Mark Kermode characterized
Speaker 1: as phallic foods. Take that patriarchy. Chitellova herself seems to
Speaker 1: be and I totally understand this from artists all the time,
Speaker 1: she seems to have resisted attempts to characterize her work
Speaker 1: with a any particular like stamp of ideology or artistic style.
Speaker 1: She she tended, you know, so like I don't want
Speaker 1: labels that kind of thing. Though her movies have been
Speaker 1: characterized by others as feminist, as individualist, as anarchist or
Speaker 1: anti authoritarian, as socialist, as manic or absurdist, I think
Speaker 1: you can find elements of all of that in there. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: especially you know, the manic vibe is very present. Uh,
Speaker 1: definitely definitely a feminist take on the Adam and Eve.
Speaker 1: And I think this is this is something that I
Speaker 1: really ended up ruminating moron when I looked at some
Speaker 1: of the other Adam and Eve movies that have come
Speaker 1: out over the years. And I'm gonna get to those
Speaker 1: later in the episode, but almost all of them one
Speaker 1: thing that I found in common is you would have
Speaker 1: pretty much a name actor like a pretty boy or
Speaker 1: a muscle boy playing Adam. But then Eve was very
Speaker 1: often played by an unknown, essentially a model that had
Speaker 1: no acting experience and sometimes did not after the film.
Speaker 1: So you know, obviously there's all this energy being put
Speaker 1: into Adam and Eve is just a prop. Eve is
Speaker 1: not really a character in the portrayal for the most part. Uh,
Speaker 1: this film is very is very much the opposite, I mean,
Speaker 1: and Eve's front and center. She is the focus. She's
Speaker 1: the If there's a character that we truly identify with
Speaker 1: and can imagine the internal world of it, is Eve
Speaker 1: or or Eva? Uh is this a film where she's
Speaker 1: called Eva? Well, I think that's I think Eva is
Speaker 1: just the check way of saying Eve. So it's the same,
Speaker 1: I think. But yeah, it's it's Ava in the movie.
Speaker 1: But when you are great, She's She's the center of
Speaker 1: this film. And I would the main characteristic I would
Speaker 1: identify of of Ava in this movie is freedom. There
Speaker 1: is something about her that just exudes a at an
Speaker 1: infectious almost dangerous freedom, and I think that's funny and
Speaker 1: how it aligns with something that Chilova actually said about herself.
Speaker 1: Apparently this is a quote that she said about herself
Speaker 1: in a documentary by somebody named he as Amina Blajevich
Speaker 1: Chitlova said, I was daring enough to want absolute freedom,
Speaker 1: even if it was a mistake. I think that's perfect.
Speaker 1: I mean that that really sums up I feel like
Speaker 1: the whole vibe of of of the ev character in
Speaker 1: this film, because it's not like a she's not like
Speaker 1: a righteous rule breaker, where where again we would have
Speaker 1: to imagine this maybe super serious take on this that
Speaker 1: that handles it differently. But but yeah, she is. She
Speaker 1: is dangerously free. She's gonna she's gonna do what she wants,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it might actually screw up paradise, but that's
Speaker 1: that's the price of freedom she in this movie. She
Speaker 1: is not chaotic good. She's not chaotic evil. She's chaotic neutral. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and chaotic neutral and dungeons and dragons like that's that's
Speaker 1: often characterized as a as a type of character that
Speaker 1: is difficult or annoying to play. So it's also you
Speaker 1: might you might well find her character maybe difficult and
Speaker 1: annoying in this film because again, the chaotic neutral mindset,
Speaker 1: it's not something that necessarily works well as the central
Speaker 1: focus of a traditional narrative. Uh and and that's the
Speaker 1: problem you get into a Dungeons and Dragons like, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna be You're just gonna be a crazy person. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm we're trying to all tell a story here together.
Speaker 1: But in an art film like this, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of perfect an art film, or I would
Speaker 1: say any kind of like a surrealist kind of comedy,
Speaker 1: something where where the character, the central character is the jester.
Speaker 1: The jester. That's a good way of putting it. I
Speaker 1: would agree with that characterization here. Um uh. One more
Speaker 1: quote about herself that I found was Chittolova apparently once
Speaker 1: called herself an overheated kettle that you can't turn down.
Speaker 1: I think she was describing her her sort of filmmaking style,
Speaker 1: that it's very like, it's very passionate and high energy
Speaker 1: and relentlessly pursuing the freedom to realize what she what
Speaker 1: she feels like putting on screen, even if somebody's telling
Speaker 1: her don't do this. I will say that that that
Speaker 1: is one of the great things about an art film,
Speaker 1: even ones that that I haven't particularly enjoyed in the past. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: just to I keep I keep alluding to this, let
Speaker 1: me actually say which film I'm thinking of, because some
Speaker 1: of you might be familiar with it. Yes, a nineteen
Speaker 1: nine film called Begotten. Uh. This is uh by e
Speaker 1: Elias Marriage. Uh. This is the guy who, believe went
Speaker 1: on to make Shadow of a Vampire. Oh, so a
Speaker 1: talented director. But Begotten is very much a weird art film,
Speaker 1: often described as an experimental horror film. Uh. That is
Speaker 1: visually very impressive, but also very serious. And I thought,
Speaker 1: and for me, I've rather boring so so uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that that, I think is often the kind of conundrum
Speaker 1: with an art film. It's like you get this pure
Speaker 1: vision and that vision is not it's not it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a narrative. It's not a commercial film. It's not
Speaker 1: it's not that it's not really about entertaining you per se. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it has a different agenda in place. And um
Speaker 1: in in in that respect, yeah, you can't really judge
Speaker 1: it with the same criteria. Uh. That being said, I
Speaker 1: will drive home again that yes, um, Fruit of Paradise
Speaker 1: far more enjoyable, a far more enjoyable experience. And um
Speaker 1: and certainly and nobody disembowels themselves. Like I was thinking
Speaker 1: of what would be kind of like the bingo card
Speaker 1: of art films based on one's I've seen, and it
Speaker 1: would be stuff like okay, um, you know, copious amounts
Speaker 1: of nudity, um, disembowment. I don't know what else. I
Speaker 1: didn't get very far with this experiment. Your personal history
Speaker 1: may trend towards more like sort of horror themed experimental films. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in in large part, I guess it has like and
Speaker 1: uh you know, you certainly when you think of the
Speaker 1: films have say, like, um, a lot of like the
Speaker 1: psychedelic experimental films or getting into the work of of Doodorowski.
Speaker 1: You know, that's stuff that is going to again have
Speaker 1: at least one foot in some sort of genre experience,
Speaker 1: be a Western, or fantasy or or horror. Uh so.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, But then again you come back to this
Speaker 1: film and it does have one foot firmly in the
Speaker 1: world of myth. Anyway, I got off on a tangent there,
Speaker 1: abobub we got. I don't even remember what my original point.
Speaker 1: That's all right, man, We're all good, okay, So, uh
Speaker 1: so we've just been talking about Chenollova herself for a while,
Speaker 1: but she did not make this movie completely alone. She
Speaker 1: had collaborators, including somebody named Esther Krumbakova, who Tenollova had
Speaker 1: worked with multiple times before, or at least worked with
Speaker 1: multiple times. Yeah. She lived primarily check costume designer, but
Speaker 1: also a writer who also wrote in direct to nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies Killing the Devil, and she also worked on the
Speaker 1: screenplay for Daisies. Like you said, she was a frequent collaborator. Now,
Speaker 1: we mentioned how much we loved, uh the character Ava
Speaker 1: in this movie, and a lot of that is not
Speaker 1: just the weird things she does from scene to scene. Uh.
Speaker 1: The actress who plays her is also really great. And
Speaker 1: this is somebody named Ytka Novacova. Yeah. Yeah, she lived
Speaker 1: ninety two through two thousand and eighteen. Check actor, most
Speaker 1: mostly active during the nineteen seventies. And yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: such a great screen presence. I would I was thinking
Speaker 1: of how to describe it. I would say she has
Speaker 1: an impish energy to her, getting again into that Jester
Speaker 1: vibe that she has going. Like I said, that dangerous
Speaker 1: sense of freedom that's even there in the expressions on
Speaker 1: her face. And it's trending very much towards a mischievousness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And again this just stands in start contrast to I
Speaker 1: think most cinematic Eves. You'll see Adam and Eve movies
Speaker 1: tend to fall into that category that I think of
Speaker 1: as doll people movies where you of some sort of
Speaker 1: of overly innocent people that often they often end up
Speaker 1: playing it kind of dumb like innocence as kind of
Speaker 1: a stupidity. I think of, you know, movises like the Clonus,
Speaker 1: Horror anything, where you have adults of behaving sort of
Speaker 1: like children, but but again often going in this sort
Speaker 1: of daft direction of that. But here I feel like
Speaker 1: Eva is very much uh, you know, we were talking
Speaker 1: about a character who is innocent, who is in a
Speaker 1: sense a person with the mind of a child, but
Speaker 1: in the chaotic sense, but in a way that is
Speaker 1: still very much a part of the innocence of childhood.
Speaker 1: And uh, and it's just it's beautifully captured, beautifully active.
Speaker 1: This Eva is not going to go to America when
Speaker 1: they say it's time to go to America, She's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to run with scissors now. Yeah, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: because seriously, you think of like Eve you think of
Speaker 1: of of children, and you think of Adam, you think
Speaker 1: of children, and yes, a child may say something like
Speaker 1: what the flower father? What is a butterfly? I don't know,
Speaker 1: But they're also going to be the type of the
Speaker 1: individual to say, smears something sticky on the wall just
Speaker 1: to see what it looks like. Children are are innocent
Speaker 1: that they are there is this chaos to then they are.
Speaker 1: They are testing the world, and you get a strong
Speaker 1: sense of that in this performance. Now, Rob I didn't
Speaker 1: think about this beforehand, but the two named male characters
Speaker 1: in this movie are Robert and Joseph, which are our names. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: my name corresponds to the boring one. I am Adam. Who.
Speaker 1: How would you characterize Adam in this movie? He's a
Speaker 1: weird kind of back note to everything, like he's this
Speaker 1: uh uh kind of alternately well meaning and devious but
Speaker 1: also sometimes oblivious older man. Yeah, it's a strange energy
Speaker 1: because again stands out from other Adam and E films
Speaker 1: because it's not a muscle dude. It's I though he
Speaker 1: seems to be in good shape, but he's obviously an
Speaker 1: older guy. It was really kind of hard to put
Speaker 1: a finger on. But yeah, there's something kind of unsettling
Speaker 1: about him, but not overtly so. I I anytime he
Speaker 1: was on screen, I was just kind of puzzling over
Speaker 1: his presence. But this is this character Adam in this
Speaker 1: movie Yosef played by Carl Novak. I guess I would
Speaker 1: say that at times he has more of a partner
Speaker 1: vibe and other times he has kind of a a
Speaker 1: would be controller vibe. I don't know if I'm reading
Speaker 1: too much into the film, but uh, I guess I
Speaker 1: was also thinking about sort of a more feminist betrayal
Speaker 1: of Adam and Eve, one in which you're going to
Speaker 1: lean less on the idea that that Eve has messed up,
Speaker 1: and let's get into the flaws of Adam in all
Speaker 1: of this as well. But it's interesting because it doesn't
Speaker 1: just simply recast the Adam figure as like the villain.
Speaker 1: I would not call him the villain of this movie.
Speaker 1: I would just call him, uh, kind of morally confused
Speaker 1: and ambiguous. Yeah. Now, to get to the more interesting
Speaker 1: to your namesake here in the film, the character Bert.
Speaker 1: This is our snake slash devil played by Jan Schmid. Yes.
Speaker 1: Schmid was born ninety six and if IMDb is correct
Speaker 1: still alive as of this recording check. Actor, writer, and director.
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with most of the films that he's
Speaker 1: credited with, but I was taken by the fact that
Speaker 1: he's in a two film titled what is this of
Speaker 1: Thay Vampire? Vampire? I'll just I'll just skip to the summary.
Speaker 1: This is off of IMDV quote. A dr Marek is
Speaker 1: shocked when his beloved nurse Mima signs a contract with
Speaker 1: foreign car manufacturer Ferrat or Farrey Uh in order to
Speaker 1: work for them as a rally driver. A fellow doctor
Speaker 1: makes him believe that human blood is being used as
Speaker 1: fuel for Mima's ever winning car. But does that really work?
Speaker 1: We have to watch this and this must be seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that that grabbed my attention. But yeah, in this movie,
Speaker 1: Schmidt play is Robert, a weird guy in a red
Speaker 1: suit almost always I think wearing a red suit. Is
Speaker 1: described as a loner at this health resort slash paradise again,
Speaker 1: possibly a murderer, and almost certainly the devil. Like there's
Speaker 1: no denying it. This guy is supposed to be our
Speaker 1: devil figure. He is a weird nerd, the most adorably
Speaker 1: awkward Satan. Yeah, he's not your suath Satan. He's not
Speaker 1: your mustache curling Satan exactly. Though there are there are
Speaker 1: scenes where he is a little more villainous overso, but
Speaker 1: other times, yeah, he's just kind of awkward. He's just
Speaker 1: a fish out of water here. They are often describing
Speaker 1: him as like, oh, he's he's the only one here
Speaker 1: who's alone. Everyone else heres couples, and so in that
Speaker 1: there's this sense of pity, but also this sense of
Speaker 1: potential danger. You know that he's potentially potentially lectus, which
Speaker 1: is an interesting in a way. It's it's like a
Speaker 1: balanced way of looking at a Satan character. Is is
Speaker 1: he to be pitied or is he to be blamed?
Speaker 1: Or is it both? Well, and also that that thing
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier about is he the corrupter or is
Speaker 1: he the person who actually brings true knowledge that pulls
Speaker 1: the wool away from your eyes? Yeah, which the Satan
Speaker 1: Prometheus dichotomy. So he did bring a gun into a
Speaker 1: health spot, which I feel like that's a red flag
Speaker 1: bad bad call Satan. Now. One of the thing I
Speaker 1: have got to say about this movie, though, is I
Speaker 1: loved the music, especially at certain parts like there's a
Speaker 1: whole scene, uh that where where Ava just goes up
Speaker 1: into the attic and starts playing drums and it turns
Speaker 1: into this weird drum solo that uh later involves trying
Speaker 1: to push a statue out of a window to land
Speaker 1: on her and kill her. Um. But but the music
Speaker 1: throughout the movie is just great. I think, actually probably
Speaker 1: my favorite part of music and the whole thing is
Speaker 1: the beginning sequence with the psychedelic nude Adam and Eve
Speaker 1: with the with the like choirs singing the lines from
Speaker 1: the biblical story. Yeah, that was wonderful, uh and yeah
Speaker 1: there and then the music. There are times where the
Speaker 1: music is more whimsical, because again there are a lot
Speaker 1: of whimsical scenes, But then there is just a lot
Speaker 1: of of electronic and kind of coral, kind of eerie
Speaker 1: ethereal uh sound pieces that are in play here, and
Speaker 1: I love those. So I think the music for for
Speaker 1: Me is one of the strongest elements of the film.
Speaker 1: And the music here is from Zdenek Liska, who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two through nineteen eighty three. Check composer who
Speaker 1: worked on film scores from the nineteen fifties through the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties. He's noted for his use of electronic sounds,
Speaker 1: and is known for his work on the early short
Speaker 1: films of stop motion surrealist Young spunk Meyer Uh. In
Speaker 1: addition to Fruit of Paradise, he also worked on such
Speaker 1: notable check films as The Valley of the Bees, The Creamator,
Speaker 1: and uh kory x B one. This was a nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three science fiction film based loosely on Stanis law
Speaker 1: Him's The Magellanic Cloud, which also I've read may have
Speaker 1: been partial inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting. You attached a couple of screenshots. This looks
Speaker 1: like a movie I would like to see. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, my affinity as has come through a little
Speaker 1: bit on the show so far, for like for like
Speaker 1: Eastern block science fiction films. They're not always amazing, but
Speaker 1: there's something about them that's that's kind of fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was pulling up some stills from this one. Yeah
Speaker 1: and uh, and some of them look exactly like some
Speaker 1: sort of an early sixties sci fi world. You know,
Speaker 1: you have the Robbie the Robot esque robot. There, you
Speaker 1: have old dudes and weird space costumes. But also some
Speaker 1: very stylistic looking interiors. I'm not saying it's anything on
Speaker 1: the level of Planet of Vampires, but still it looks
Speaker 1: it looks pretty solid. Oh yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Though it's not on the Planet of the Vampire's level,
Speaker 1: but the sets and the costumes have that quality like
Speaker 1: you would like to touch and feel them, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to touch that headrest. So anyway, strong music
Speaker 1: in this film, and yeah, I guess getting right into
Speaker 1: the well the plot a bit, if you will. The
Speaker 1: that opening sequence is pretty tremendous, you know, this this
Speaker 1: paradise sequence of the what we're to think of is
Speaker 1: not the modern paradise that we are examining in this film,
Speaker 1: but the primordial paradise. This is where we have two
Speaker 1: fully nude individuals that are walking through this psychedelic landscape
Speaker 1: with kind of kaleidoscopic colors and botanical motifs swirling around them,
Speaker 1: all while this this wonderful soundscape plays. Yeah, you see
Speaker 1: them moving through the garden and there is this quality
Speaker 1: of it's like stained glass, but with the texture of
Speaker 1: autumn leaves coming down over everything, and the colors are
Speaker 1: cascading and this amazing music is playing. Uh that that
Speaker 1: whole sequence at the beginning is just fantastic. I think
Speaker 1: this is also as newd as the film is going
Speaker 1: to get. So if you're you're hoping that this bull
Speaker 1: of nudity will be maintained throughout the film, you will
Speaker 1: be disappointed, though there will be at least a splash
Speaker 1: of nudity later on. Yeah, from here, I don't really
Speaker 1: know what's the best way to to approach, Like the
Speaker 1: part where we we would normally break down the plot
Speaker 1: because like you know, there's nothing, there's no story in
Speaker 1: particular to follow, but maybe I don't know, we could
Speaker 1: talk about some moments that stood out to us. Um
Speaker 1: So the movie starts with kind of Eva wandering around
Speaker 1: in this overgrown garden area, and there's part where she
Speaker 1: she climbs over a wall that seems to be a
Speaker 1: crossing of a threshold of sorts, and she's like harvesting
Speaker 1: herbs and vegetables I guess for for food, but literally
Speaker 1: we alluded to this earlier. There's a part where she's
Speaker 1: crawling around clipping herbs from the ground and suddenly she
Speaker 1: nearly gets paid on by the devil, and the devil
Speaker 1: is like standing atop the wall, uh peeing and as
Speaker 1: if I recall, she seems a sort of interest did
Speaker 1: and amused by this turn of events. Yeah, it's an
Speaker 1: odd sequence. And in the Devil, I don't think any
Speaker 1: knows as she's down there. He's just paying because he
Speaker 1: has to relieve himself. Yeah, and there are scenes of
Speaker 1: her around this section where she's like running around with
Speaker 1: the knife. I was like, that's not safe, but for
Speaker 1: some reason it works. It's very funny. Yeah, it's this
Speaker 1: huge Michael Myer's signature edition kitchen knife that she's running
Speaker 1: around with and thankfully nobody gets hurt. Now the we
Speaker 1: alluded to the earlier to the filming locations. The filming
Speaker 1: locations are really interesting in this film. There's there's there
Speaker 1: are scenes where we have this kind of beachy desert quality,
Speaker 1: strange rock formations, and indeed there's a sequence later on
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm a little uh foggy on exactly what
Speaker 1: was happening in this sequence, But there's a woman, there's
Speaker 1: a nude woman reading a book down in this kind
Speaker 1: of rock cleft, and then our characters encounter her and
Speaker 1: there's it's there's the camera goes down into the cleft
Speaker 1: as well. It's it's a very beautiful sequence. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: involves this like very narrow slot canyon um. And then
Speaker 1: there are other parts where you see somebody i think
Speaker 1: maybe one of the top ledges above that canyon, pushing
Speaker 1: a boulder toward the edge, like they're going to push
Speaker 1: it off to land on somebody, which is a recurring
Speaker 1: theme in the movie. Actually there's a scene so where
Speaker 1: where the Devil and Adam are both there like having
Speaker 1: a conversation in the attic of a house and they're like, Hey,
Speaker 1: look at this beautiful marble statue, and they get the idea,
Speaker 1: what if we push this out the window so it
Speaker 1: lands on Eve. Well, maybe we should try it. And
Speaker 1: so there's that, there's the pushing the statue out the window,
Speaker 1: there's the pushing the rock off the ledge to land
Speaker 1: on somebody. I don't know exactly what to say this
Speaker 1: theme means, and in fact, I think I've made my
Speaker 1: feelings about this clear on the show before. I'm less
Speaker 1: a fan of like really direct allegory where it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this image means exactly this, and this character corresponds to
Speaker 1: exactly this person. You know, I like a more kind
Speaker 1: of ambiguous symbolism that that has numerous associations but doesn't
Speaker 1: clearly respond to just like, oh, well, it means this
Speaker 1: one thing. But clearly this seemed to be something that
Speaker 1: was on Chittelova's mind, like the pushing of heavy objects
Speaker 1: off of ledges, uh, therefore threatening somebody who lies is
Speaker 1: down below. But I don't know. Did did you think
Speaker 1: about that? I? I did now thinking back on it.
Speaker 1: Did they ever actually have anything land on anybody? To
Speaker 1: the devil actually squash anybody? Well? No, In the end,
Speaker 1: the devil ends up pushing the rock down a down
Speaker 1: a hill and it goes it rolls into the bog, remember,
Speaker 1: and then he's trying and then characters are standing on
Speaker 1: the rock so as not to sink into the bog.
Speaker 1: But I think there are multiple I can't remember if
Speaker 1: it actually lands on Eva and kills her in the
Speaker 1: scene where they're pushing the statue out the window. I
Speaker 1: think it's implied that it does, but then she's alive
Speaker 1: again in the next scene. So yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: quite what to make of it, but I like you,
Speaker 1: I like the ambiguity of it. It also ties into
Speaker 1: again the whimsical nature. Why is the devil pushing these
Speaker 1: rocks around? What's this about? I mean, I think to
Speaker 1: take it on. The more you re aside, you could
Speaker 1: say that that kind of imagery could have something to
Speaker 1: do with like the hammer falling of course with the
Speaker 1: the invasion of Czechoslovakia. But um, but it's hard to
Speaker 1: get too specific about it. Yeah, or the devil's playing
Speaker 1: kind of a long game where yeah, it's it's about
Speaker 1: fun now, but ultimately it's about a rock falling on you. Now.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite sequences in the film was the
Speaker 1: sequence in which are Gal Eva here, who again is
Speaker 1: is both interested in the devil but also and Robert
Speaker 1: the Devil but also is you know, a little fraid
Speaker 1: of him at times. And there's this wonderful scene where
Speaker 1: where everybody's out fro loocking on the beach or in
Speaker 1: the sand. Robert the Devil drops the key key from
Speaker 1: his pocket and Eva steals it and then takes the
Speaker 1: key back and breaks into the devil's room at the
Speaker 1: main building of the health spa and basically just snoops
Speaker 1: through all the devil's stuff. She finds a six stamp
Speaker 1: and gives herself a stamp on the upper thigh. Uh so, yeah.
Speaker 1: Probably probably my favorite sequence in the film is esscitainly
Speaker 1: my favorite day Eva sequence because she's just frolicking around.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, I love that part. In fact,
Speaker 1: So she stamps herself on the thigh with the number six,
Speaker 1: and then she finds the stamp won't come off, and
Speaker 1: then she realizes I think that the other women who
Speaker 1: have turned up murdered were also stamped with numbers, and
Speaker 1: she's like, whoops. But when she's going through the Devil's stuff,
Speaker 1: is this the scene where she was opening drawers in
Speaker 1: the desk and they like, one day drawer is full
Speaker 1: of cherries and another drawers I get where the drawers
Speaker 1: are all full of like implausible things. Well, he likes
Speaker 1: the color red, so he likes cherries. I guess. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that. Yes, that's rather obvious in retrospect,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. There's also fruit. It's more fruit,
Speaker 1: that's right now. As you pointed out, there is a
Speaker 1: lot of chasing in this movie, and it's not a
Speaker 1: in a consistent direction either. Characters sort of take turns
Speaker 1: chasing each other in different situations. Yeah, Eva chases Robert
Speaker 1: Proper chases Eva. More shots of these surreal locations is
Speaker 1: there you go about these chases, and so this is
Speaker 1: definitely a sequence where, um, you know, my brain was
Speaker 1: probably wanting to find more narrative than was present, but
Speaker 1: you know, you still you still go with it. One
Speaker 1: character is chasing the other. That's really all you need
Speaker 1: to know. This continues for some time, but eventually you're
Speaker 1: gonna get to that big showdown, right, um, which I
Speaker 1: mean I say that like it's a matter of fact.
Speaker 1: There's no showdown between even the Devil in the Bible,
Speaker 1: so you might well not expected here, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: it felt it felt logical here because it's also this
Speaker 1: idea that the devil is killing people, so he's like
Speaker 1: a murder suspect. Any kind of film, if you present
Speaker 1: a murder suspect, there has to be a confrontation, right
Speaker 1: like that that goes beyond like narrative structure, and like
Speaker 1: that seems to be some sort of a divine imprint
Speaker 1: on reality. I thought it was interesting that this showdown
Speaker 1: takes place at a setting that would be a perfectly
Speaker 1: suitable location for an ending sword fight if you're gonna
Speaker 1: have he man battle the enemy, uh you know, and
Speaker 1: they're crossing sabers. It's out on this like rock by
Speaker 1: the water's edge that looks very dramatic, but instead what
Speaker 1: even the and Robert end up doing there is having
Speaker 1: these sort of almost waiting for Godot like uh you know,
Speaker 1: like the conversations that seem to end up in a
Speaker 1: certain place, but then that's immediately undercut, like they're talking
Speaker 1: about whether he's going to murder her with this gun
Speaker 1: or not. And then I think at one point he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to murder you now, and then he doesn't,
Speaker 1: and then she gets the gun. And then clearly something
Speaker 1: comes through from this about you know, a situation of
Speaker 1: dangerous ambiguity where like you, you feel the stakes are high,
Speaker 1: but you don't know if someone is your friend or
Speaker 1: your enemy. You don't know if they love you or
Speaker 1: if they're going to kill you. Also say that that
Speaker 1: Robert the devil here doesn't get He doesn't have like
Speaker 1: a villainous monologue or anything, so there's there's no moment
Speaker 1: where he's like, off, this was my design. I've you know,
Speaker 1: I've I've I've brought down God's creation or anything to
Speaker 1: that effect. Like he it's played pretty uh ambiguous with
Speaker 1: him as well, which I think ultimately works quite well
Speaker 1: in this film. Now, as we said, even though this
Speaker 1: movie is not like super heavy handed and serious, it
Speaker 1: does clearly have a theme of something about the loss
Speaker 1: of innocence. I would say this is characterized by like
Speaker 1: the changing color of Eva's clothing, like changing from from
Speaker 1: like white to red and uh, and then also the
Speaker 1: parts where she's like trying to climb back over the
Speaker 1: wall into the garden but she can't get over it,
Speaker 1: you know, like the state of innocence cannot be regained.
Speaker 1: And I guess this ties more into the ends of
Speaker 1: themes that you would normally see in these other uh
Speaker 1: maybe uh more constrained Adam and Eve type films. In fact, Rob,
Speaker 1: I know you you sort of did a deep dive
Speaker 1: on Adam and Eve movies that did you want to
Speaker 1: get into that here? Sure? But but first I will
Speaker 1: say that another thing about the ending to this is
Speaker 1: that it does end and kind of on a somber
Speaker 1: note when she she finally makes her way back to
Speaker 1: the atom figure to Joseph and yeah, they have this
Speaker 1: this kind of like somber interaction. Uh, you know, as
Speaker 1: if to drive home it's maybe not it's it's not
Speaker 1: as as mythic and overbearing, as like as an angel
Speaker 1: with a flaming sword saying, all right, I gotta get
Speaker 1: out of the paradise. Now go up and have painful childbirth.
Speaker 1: But but there is this this somber sense of things
Speaker 1: are not going to be the same again, that that
Speaker 1: the innocence has been lost, but not in such an
Speaker 1: overtly dramatic way, but more in a subtle way, like
Speaker 1: one day when you realize that you were you're you're
Speaker 1: not a child anymore, when you realize that you are
Speaker 1: a grown up or that or that you were under
Speaker 1: at least by some definitions, an old person. Now that
Speaker 1: sort of thing like that seems to be the kind
Speaker 1: of vibe that they have. Or that some change has
Speaker 1: happened in the world. Uh that maybe you weren't even
Speaker 1: aware of it at the time, but now that that
Speaker 1: change has definitely occurred and there's no going back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's profound. In fact, I was going to
Speaker 1: say that the last feeling I had with the movie
Speaker 1: is you can't go back. Yeah, alright, Well, getting into
Speaker 1: other Adam and Eve movies just briefly. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on these because some of
Speaker 1: them we might even come back to. I don't know. UM,
Speaker 1: I would say the Adam and Eve film that stands
Speaker 1: out to me the most is nineteen eighties The Apple.
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about The Apple before, Joe just
Speaker 1: I mean off off the podcast. Have you seen The Apple? No?
Speaker 1: I haven't, I've heard of it. It is a science
Speaker 1: fiction musical comedy film starring Katherine Mary Stewart as Eve,
Speaker 1: Polish actor of Vladdock, Sheball as the Devil, and josh
Speaker 1: Ak and the great British actor as God in a
Speaker 1: small role. And it is um it is a lot.
Speaker 1: This is a film that a lot of people consider
Speaker 1: it to be a very bad film, but it's beyond
Speaker 1: good and bad, like it's it's beyond good and evil.
Speaker 1: It is just a very strange film that is extremely
Speaker 1: over the top. Was this a Cannon Films venture? Why
Speaker 1: do I want to say that? Um? I don't recall
Speaker 1: off hand if if Cannon did not have a have
Speaker 1: a role in it. It has that kind of Cannon energy,
Speaker 1: like like what what chemical? Um concoction helped create this
Speaker 1: vision for cinema and then saw it realized yep, I
Speaker 1: just looked it up. It was indeed the Cannon group,
Speaker 1: it's a director, it's this is a Gold Globus film.
Speaker 1: Well it is. Uh, it is also an acquired taste,
Speaker 1: but but the one that's a lot of fun. So
Speaker 1: I think the riff track guys did this year's Bad
Speaker 1: Act and it was a pretty fun riff at the time. Well,
Speaker 1: and even if it's known for being very bad, uh,
Speaker 1: I would like to check it out because this seems
Speaker 1: to defy the conventions. So if you ask me, I
Speaker 1: don't know a lot about Adam and Eve movies, but
Speaker 1: my guests would be they fall essentially into two categories.
Speaker 1: One is, you know, your ten Commandment style sort of
Speaker 1: like literal, heavy handed religious film, and then the other
Speaker 1: style would be exploitation movie that's just an excuse to
Speaker 1: show two naked people. Yeah, and and here's the thing though,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times there's a considerable overlap
Speaker 1: between those two because certainly, yeah, you do have this
Speaker 1: this very this old old Testament account of Adam and
Speaker 1: Eve at the heart here, but it inherently involves uh,
Speaker 1: naked people walking around in paradise wearing little or no clothing.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe they have some leaves on, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. So there is some inherent titillation that's that's unavoidable,
Speaker 1: like how or if you're gonna if you're gonna commit
Speaker 1: this to to film, then you're gonna have to make
Speaker 1: some choices about how how naked it is going to be,
Speaker 1: so you see this. This is strongly present in many
Speaker 1: of the more famous Adam and E films over the years.
Speaker 1: One that I'm particularly interested in that I didn't know
Speaker 1: about until just yesterday is Adam and Eve from three,
Speaker 1: an Italian production starring Mark Gregory. Mark Gregory was the
Speaker 1: hero in The Bronx Warriors and the film Escape from
Speaker 1: the Bronx. These were kind of escape from New York
Speaker 1: esque post apocalyptic films. Wait was he and was he
Speaker 1: in Hands of Steel? The Italian Terminator rip off? We did?
Speaker 1: I don't think he was. No, this is a different dude.
Speaker 1: But this guy had more of a muscular but leaner
Speaker 1: with really shaggy dark hair. You'd recognize him if you
Speaker 1: saw him. Okay, I have read I believe that George
Speaker 1: Miller of Mad Max Fame did some of the secondary
Speaker 1: landscape shots in this uncredited, but it looks it looks
Speaker 1: so interesting. It has pterodactyls and cannibal cavemen in it,
Speaker 1: so they seemed to do it. Perhaps set out to
Speaker 1: make Adam and Eve and then realize, well, we should
Speaker 1: go we should make this even more fantastic. Why are
Speaker 1: there no caveman? Why is there no cannibalism? Can we
Speaker 1: throw some prehistoric reptiles in here and have Adam kill
Speaker 1: one of them? Um, it sounds amazing. I haven't watched
Speaker 1: it yet, but I asked the folks that video Drome
Speaker 1: if they had it, and they're like, we will have
Speaker 1: it for you by the end of the week. So um,
Speaker 1: I'm at least gonna watch it on my own time. Wait,
Speaker 1: it has cannibal caveman, pterodactyls, shirtless muscle dude. And this
Speaker 1: just sounds like a Bible themed version of your Hunter
Speaker 1: from the Future. Is this just smashing together two genres,
Speaker 1: which one is Bible movie and the other is Italian
Speaker 1: leather diaper barbarian movie. I think you nailed it, Yes.
Speaker 1: And now another adaptation that's worth the noting is the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine Mexican adaptation The Sin of Adam and Eve,
Speaker 1: which has Jorge Rivero in it, who is in Lucci
Speaker 1: Luccio Fulci's Conquest, and also the film Werewolf. He plays
Speaker 1: Yuri and werewolf, the extremely muscley. He's supposed to be
Speaker 1: a paleontologist or archaeologist and I don't know, but he's
Speaker 1: the one who wants to make a living werewolf and
Speaker 1: he does it by hitting a guy with a werewolf skull. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as though, big handsome muscle guy playing plan Adam in
Speaker 1: this film. I was looking around. There's some other's one.
Speaker 1: There's a nineteen seventy Iranian Adam and E film that's
Speaker 1: listed on an IMDb, but I haven't found much else
Speaker 1: about it. Oh, and then there's a nineteen fifty six
Speaker 1: Mexican Adam and Eve film by director Alberto Gout And Oh.
Speaker 1: I was reading about this one in Michael Weldon's Psychotronic books.
Speaker 1: He says that this movie was given an A three
Speaker 1: rating in nineteen fifty six, which I'm to understand. It
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know if that's the equivalent of
Speaker 1: a G, but it was like a very family friendly
Speaker 1: rating because it was quote based on the Bible. Um, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: there are other films with nudity that we're being banned
Speaker 1: in Mexico at the time. Um. Weldon also writes that
Speaker 1: quote an all naked premiere was held at a nudest
Speaker 1: colony and miniature Bibles were sold at some showings, which, okay,
Speaker 1: I think that really drives home the idea of Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve films as Christian Eurotica right there. Like that,
Speaker 1: it's able to sort of double dip, where on one
Speaker 1: hand it's being you know, it's they're having a screening
Speaker 1: at a nudest colony, clearly trying to maybe cultivate that
Speaker 1: euromarket for the film, but also, uh, it is for
Speaker 1: the children, it is for the churchgoers, and therefore it
Speaker 1: is safe and wholesome for the domestic market. That's weird.
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve movies are weird, There's no denying it.
Speaker 1: There's also only so much story there, like it makes
Speaker 1: so you might add some dinosaurs and some cavemen in there. Right,
Speaker 1: It's very lean narrative. I mean, essentially it's the length
Speaker 1: of a parable. You know, you can't You're either going
Speaker 1: to have to go deeper into the story beyond, like
Speaker 1: they leave the garden and then you do Cane enable
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So you could do that to
Speaker 1: stretch it out, or you're gonna have to embellish a lot,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna have to have a lot of non
Speaker 1: narrative content in the film, I don't know, just lots
Speaker 1: of shots of the garden or something. Yeah, Or it's
Speaker 1: just part of a longer narrative, such as the six
Speaker 1: film The Bible Colon in the beginning and in that
Speaker 1: when you had Michael Parks uh playing Adam in an
Speaker 1: all star cast. Whoa, I think Georgy Scotts in that one.
Speaker 1: It's what Yeah, I'm sure I've seen part of it
Speaker 1: on TV on a Sunday afternoon at some point in
Speaker 1: my life. You know, it's funny. I'm looking for the
Speaker 1: listeners benefit. Rob. You have attached a bunch of screenshots
Speaker 1: from various Adam and Eve movies over the years in
Speaker 1: our outline here. It seems largely that these these characters
Speaker 1: are cast just according to how photogenic they are. But
Speaker 1: like one direction, seems like they often make Adam like
Speaker 1: a like a muscle man, you know, like a Hercules
Speaker 1: type figure. But the other ways, they just make him
Speaker 1: like kind of an elf. Yeah, and Michael Parks definitely
Speaker 1: played a very elfin atom Uh. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think I've seen much from his earlier career most
Speaker 1: of the mostly when I think of him as an actor,
Speaker 1: I think of of more grizzled performances that he gave
Speaker 1: later in life. And oh one more. There was also
Speaker 1: a two thousand thirteen miniseries titled The Bible and in
Speaker 1: the United States. It was narrated by Keith David What
Speaker 1: ya um, but I I haven't seen this one, but
Speaker 1: oh I included this very um it's kind of greasy
Speaker 1: and grimy looking still shot from this of Adam and
Speaker 1: Eve with Eve played by Darcy Rose, and they're they're
Speaker 1: out there in the garden. Presumably they have something that
Speaker 1: I'm I guess it's supposed to be the fruit, but
Speaker 1: it looks like some sort of a Crimson egg jewel
Speaker 1: or something. And they look very serious, very but also
Speaker 1: very maxim magazine. Yeah, they're really dirty and the fruit
Speaker 1: looks like a century egg. Yeah. So that's just a
Speaker 1: taste of some of the Adam and Eve movies. But
Speaker 1: but people have been making Adam and Eve movies for
Speaker 1: forever like you. I could also find some examples of
Speaker 1: silent films them as far back as nineteen twelve and
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen. So you know, obviously it's a famous story.
Speaker 1: It is also visually captivating. Uh and and so it
Speaker 1: makes sense that it would receive early cinematic treatment. Oh yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: And I will say I have not seen most of
Speaker 1: these movies. I don't know if I've seen any of
Speaker 1: these other Adam and Eve movies, but I've got to imagine,
Speaker 1: uh maybe, along with the Apple, Fruit of Paradise has
Speaker 1: got to be one of the most unique takes on
Speaker 1: the story. Yeah. Oh. There is also a ninete Italian
Speaker 1: comedy titled Adam and Eve that was produced by Dino
Speaker 1: di Laurentis. I included a poster from this. As you
Speaker 1: can tell, we have the clearly beautiful blonde Eve, very
Speaker 1: blond Eve, holding the apple, and also a clear comedic
Speaker 1: player in the role of Adam here. Uh so, uh
Speaker 1: so we've also been we've been having some levels of
Speaker 1: comedic fun here, clearly over the top with this myth
Speaker 1: for quite a while as well. The Adam in this
Speaker 1: poster looks way too a sited. He's like his eyes
Speaker 1: are huge as eyebrowser lifted up. Yeah, you're giving taking
Speaker 1: the source materials seriously at all. Yeah, this looks like
Speaker 1: an Italian sex comedy. Yeah, I'm almost positive it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're both not Eve. Look at look at her having
Speaker 1: way too much fun. Go ahead and leave the garden now.
Speaker 1: In fact, just go ahead and just out. I can
Speaker 1: tell Adam here looks like a child who is showing
Speaker 1: you the like ridiculous looking character he made in uh
Speaker 1: wwf war Zone for the Nintendo sixty. Yeah. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from anyone out there who has
Speaker 1: as any additional info they want to share about Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve movies or memories of seeing Adam and Eve
Speaker 1: movies early on. I'm I'm especially interested in in anybody
Speaker 1: who attended, to, say, a church viewing of of a
Speaker 1: film that featured the Adam and Eve story and what
Speaker 1: that was like, um, Because again you get to the
Speaker 1: strange area where it is inherently titillating. Um, but it
Speaker 1: is also you know, sometimes prevented presented in this this
Speaker 1: entirely sacred and wholesome package. So I wonder how that
Speaker 1: went down for some people out there. Likewise, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from anyone who has thoughts about our our
Speaker 1: central discussion piece here, Fruit of Paradise. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: we are. I speak for myself. I don't know much
Speaker 1: about check cinema, so I would love to hear from
Speaker 1: anyone out there who has more expertise in the world
Speaker 1: of check cinema. Perhaps you have thoughts or additional notes
Speaker 1: on some of the players that were involved in this
Speaker 1: film some of the other films they were in, because
Speaker 1: again I could look up these actors and I could
Speaker 1: find more details on some of the films, but I
Speaker 1: just don't know much about this whole cinematic realm so much. Yes,
Speaker 1: same here, I was looking around. I think I'm I'm
Speaker 1: woefully uh under exposed to to check cinema. The closest
Speaker 1: thing I could think is, obviously, I know the UM
Speaker 1: the American films of Milosh Foreman, who started in in
Speaker 1: check cinema UM and I think was sort of the
Speaker 1: same generation as to LoVa, or at least was somewhere
Speaker 1: around there, but then of course ended up making films
Speaker 1: like Amadas. Yeah, yeah, so I'm familiar with him. I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm more familiar with with the check directors
Speaker 1: who definitely crossed over into the into like the American
Speaker 1: market to some extent. And I've seen some of the
Speaker 1: films of of Jan's Funk Maya, but not all of them.
Speaker 1: All Right, well, we're gonna go ahead and uh and
Speaker 1: close the book on this episode of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: But yeah, right in, we'd love to hear from you. Also,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out our letterboxed account, that's
Speaker 1: that uh L E T T E R b o
Speaker 1: x D dot com. We have a profile there. Our
Speaker 1: user name is weird House. You can follow us there.
Speaker 1: You can look at a list and a visual uh
Speaker 1: compilation of all the films that we've discussed on the show.
Speaker 1: And also I'll often go ahead and add the next
Speaker 1: movie on there as well, so you get like a
Speaker 1: little glimpse ahead at what's coming. Also, I blog about
Speaker 1: the films that we watch here at smut music dot com.
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema is our Friday episode and the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: but on Friday's we put aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a strange film and uh yeah, anything
Speaker 1: else so we should throw in here, I guess I
Speaker 1: guess not. We're good to go, right right, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: are set to depart the garden. That's right out. Just
Speaker 1: did the animals get to stay unclear? Um? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess they didn't eat the fruit. Yeah, true.
Speaker 1: I guess I should revisit my My Dante because they
Speaker 1: you do get to visit the earthly paradise at the
Speaker 1: amount of purgatory. Oh that's at the top of purgatory yet,
Speaker 1: So okay anyway, huge thanks as always to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producers Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. It's production of I Heart Radio.
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