Birds, Orphans and Fools

Out of the Past - KVIFF 60/80 / Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni / Czechoslovakia, France 1969

Synopsis

A tale of two young men and the girl they love, Martha, played by the ethereally beautiful Magda Vášáryová. Their madcap ideas and pranks flitting between children’s playfulness and provocation seemingly spring from an inexhaustible fount of joy. They swap bizarre costumes as well as masks, and no situation can be foreseen; nor can its outcome, a fact reinforced by dynamic lensing, editing and expressive music. In contrast to the protagonists’ eccentric actions, however, the mise-en-scène is laden from the outset with the chaos of all-consuming decay and with dark references to the past. The threesome’s merry escapades start to look increasingly like a dance on the edge of the abyss, into which they too will inexorably fall. FIPRESCI Award in 1990.

Zdena Škapová

Film stills © Slovak Film Institute

About the film

78 min / Color, 35 mm

Director Juraj Jakubisko / Screenplay Juraj Jakubisko, Karol Sidon / Dir. of Photography Igor Luther / Music Zdeněk Liška / Sound Alexander Pallós / Editor Maximilián Remeň, Bob Wade / Art Director Anton Krajčovič / Producer Samy Halfon / Production Slovenský film Bratislava / Coproduction COMO FILMS, Lux Compagnie Cinématographique de France / Cast Philippe Avron, Magda Vášáryová, Jiří Sýkora, Míla Beran, Françoise Goldité, Mikuláš Ladižinský, Jana Čechová, Augustín Kubán

About the director

Juraj Jakubisko. Selected filmography: The Prime of Life (1967), The Deserter and the Nomads (1968), Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969), See You in Hell, Friends (1970), The Millennial Bee (1983), The Feather Fairy (1985), Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself (1989), It’s Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill (1992), Bathory (2008).