Plastic People of the Universe

César de Ferrari / Czechoslovakia / 1970 / The film already had its Czech Premiere / 10 min.

synopsis

The first documentary about the underground band PPU was made shortly after its formation in 1968. It captures a party at the Jirous Family’s flat in Balabenka, a music recording session at Na Petynce television studio, the group’s work in the woods near Humpolec (pruning and bark stripping to earn money for new equipment), and a rock festival in Pelhřimov. Jirous explains to the commentator the meaning of the word “underground” as defined by Ed Sanders, i.e. a total attack on culture, and talks about collaborating with visual artists on the concepts of their performances. In the spirit of Zorka Ságlová’s land art events, four members of the group (Mejla Hlavsa, Josef Janíček, Pavel Zeman and I. M. Jirous) jump out of the window of a flat in Holešovice where Hlavsa lived with Mirka Benešová; they appear in front of a painted wall using a stop-motion technique; they wrestle in a meadow by the river; they attempt to climb the arches of the bridge over the Želivka River in Vojslavice near Humpolec; and they jump on benches at the Prague Exhibition Grounds. The film is accompanied by songs with lyrics by A. Grin, V. Jirousová and M. Jernek: Gnor’s Life, Fafejta Bird, The Sun, and Zappa’s Let’s Make the Water Turn Black. The film ends with a reverse shot of the return to the window and the reversal of the closing credit “The End”. The film is a documentary exercise by second-year students of the Department of Film Directing.

biography

César de Ferrari (1939–2016), a native of Uruguay, graduated in feature film directing from FAMU in 1972. While at FAMU, he directed the film Soud (The Trial, 1970/71) and appeared in films made by his fellow students, Oslava pokračuje (The Party Goes On, 1971) and Ďábel (The Devil, 1972). He also worked as a film lecturer in Latin America, where he directed a number of films. The documentary Elecciones Generales (General Elections, 1983) won him first prize in the UNAM screenwriting competition and a nomination for an Ariel Award.