OF DEMONS AND MONSTERS - OF (TECHNO) GODS AND MEN... "THE SARAGOSA MANUSCRIPT"

I was warned when I got given this DVD. I was told that it contained stories within stories, within stories and that soon I would have no idea what the f.ck I was watching. That stark (ehm) warning and the fact that Bunuel declared it one of his favorite films meant that I went in for it prepared. I often stopped in my head and retraced my steps in the plot to make sure I wasn’t completely lost. I strongly advise you do the same because yes, in places the story does get as convoluted as you currently imagine it does. I mean come on. Bunuel liked it. That has to tell you something (if you have seen any of Bunuel’s works that is. If not, he is one of the surrealist masters of the 20^th century).

The story starts off simply enough. We start with two enemy soldiers fighting in Saragosa finding an old manuscript. The presence of the manuscript seems to enchant them, political and military divides are put to one side and they begin to read. The manuscript seems to be the story of a Walloon Captain during the Napoleonic wars, Alfonse van Worden (coincidentally one of the ancestors of our two initial narrators but little is made of this plot turn. Well, the number of loose threads that DO get tied up, I reckon I can allow them one). He passes through Saragosa and, crucially, a little place called Venta Quemada on his way to Madrid on an important mission. His local guides beg and plead with him against going through Venta Quemada. Ever since two prominent bandits were hung there, ghosts and demons have been regulars there every night. Alfonse, however, is a soldier with no time for this nonsense, so he just ploughs on through. This, he quickly finds, may have been a serious mistake.

We are plunged into a surrealist adventure populated with mystics, ghosts  and demons. We meet fellow travelers on the way and exchange stories, we exchange stories of stories and dart down little paths that seem to lead into darkness or nowhere in particular until… Oh yes. The Saragosa Manuscript is not quite like anything you have witnesses.

Now before you get further please be warned. This is a 3 hour long film, with a convoluted surrealist plot, in Polish. As you can see, it truly presents a plethora of potential problems for the casual viewer. This little film (well, I say little but actually… ) does, however, present a true treasure trove for those who brave it. I personally was prepared and pre-warned so, like I pointed out, I was keeping good track of who was telling who, what. But even so, the film does offer the occasional moment to recap, where the very confused van Worden simply has to stop and retrace his own steps. Van Worden (Zbgniew Cybulski) is the typical everyman. He starts off as a typical young soldier, brave and ambitious and with an eye for beautiful women. All these, however, turn on their heads and become his downfall. For, as we all know, the ambition and hotheadedness of youth are among the things most easily used and abused by the wily. Especially if the wily happen to be demons and evil spirits. I mean not that I would personally know this but yeah. Ok. Moving on.

I love the way the delicate way the storytelling is organized in this film. And I mean, this is a film made in 1965 with all the technological means of the time; it fills me with inspiration as to how you could, with more advanced special effects and such like, make a so much more intricate pattern than that drawn out in the Saragosa Manuscripts. But then again, we don’t have films like that anymore. Because, quite honestly, who these days has the time to watch a three hour film in the first place much less one with intricate multiple stories within a story that you actually have to make a considerable personal effort to follow (at one point the story is 5 levels down. As in the manuscript tells the story told by Alfonse who heard it from a third, who heard it from a fourth who heard it from a fifth and we change locations to watch the story “live” at every single change of narrator)?  I mean, I’m not going on about the fact that this structure is rare in the first place, it naturally is. The problem is that you couldn’t get that kind of project even the vague hope of a green light these days. Then we have things like the “short shorts” offered by a popular tv network in the UK. Four – five minute versions of daytime TV programs for “those with limited time”. Err… What? I mean, only a decade ago we were lamenting that TV was limiting attention spans and killing old fashioned story telling. Now TV is suffering lethal blows from its very own machination. And I mean, can we blame JUST TV? It’s the way we live today. Smartphones are a big one. We are constantly “turned on” to the goings on online, constantly in the firing line from our bosses or the “pushy” social media networks. Even if we have the resolve to turn off the phones or put them on silent we can’t really concentrate. We know there are “things” happening whether we are looking or not. And FOMO (fear of missing out) slowly invades our concentration and our daily life. We no longer “naturally” have the time to meander through the labyrinths of the Saragosa Manuscript, we need to get out our GPS and find the quickest way out because we have urgent emails to reply to, and cat pictures to “like”.  

I don’t own a smartphone. But I am finding I spend more and more time glued to my laptop. Wifi is becoming a serious “need” – my mother’s house does not have wifi and sufficet to say that my three week visit here is turning out to be… well interesting from that perspective. No doubt, when I finally join the smartphone bandwagon, I will be as glued to it as everyone else. But as someone who has a genuine old fashioned slice of “life offline” still in their hands, all I can say is that something is really and truly changing. It is inexorable and like most change, it is not necessarily bad, it is just the way things are now. But still… I think we’re going to miss old fashioned storytelling if it actually vanishes completely. If we actually notice it’s gone, that is.