Great performances of uniformed men (Nazi's?) in town, great musical arrangements on the side and a lot of cultural references and newspaper headlines here. Furthermore a pretty boring total spectacle, for next to some religious philosophy the film itself only offers us some nice images, mostly the faces of the Nazi men responsible for it remain on the back of your head after viewing this flick. What beautiful eyes those Nazi boys had! As if the direction was focused mainly upon pardoning one's own responsible activities in the Second World War. But why didn't the woman near the ending have no armpit hair where there definitely should have been knowing the Germans in those days the way I do??
4 Reviews
MACHORKA-MUFF (Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet, 1963) **
Bunuel19762 May 2008
I’ve somehow never been drawn towards pursuing the work of these art-house film-makers (even if a good many of them have turned up over the years on a specialized programme on late-night Italian TV); having now, at long last, stumbled upon one of them I can understand why! The premise of the 17-minute short, in itself, isn’t too bad – a number of former Nazi officials reconvene years later in order to bestow an honor upon a former colleague – but the treatment is so austere as to be alienating, resulting in a largely unappetizing film!
Intermittently, however, there’s an agreeable irreverence at work here: to begin with, all the Nazis have two surnames (and always starting with the same letter, such as the titular figure); a dream sequence in which the protagonist enters a museum and uncovers a statue atop a balcony of himself; the illusion that military men can do no wrong because at no point in the Bible does Christ judge them!; the recipient of the tribute – a Major who had suffered dishonor, and subsequently died in exile, because his company suffered losses in combat amounting to a mere 8,500 men – has his reputation restored in the wake of an investigation which has firmly established that the death toll was actually in excess of 14,500!!
Intermittently, however, there’s an agreeable irreverence at work here: to begin with, all the Nazis have two surnames (and always starting with the same letter, such as the titular figure); a dream sequence in which the protagonist enters a museum and uncovers a statue atop a balcony of himself; the illusion that military men can do no wrong because at no point in the Bible does Christ judge them!; the recipient of the tribute – a Major who had suffered dishonor, and subsequently died in exile, because his company suffered losses in combat amounting to a mere 8,500 men – has his reputation restored in the wake of an investigation which has firmly established that the death toll was actually in excess of 14,500!!
A film at once oppressive and yet strangely liberating
philosopherjack23 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Straub and Huillet's Machorka-Muff introduces itself, in an opening title signed just by Straub, as "an abstract visual poem, not a story," which at once prepares the viewer for the narrative challenges of the following 18 minutes, while perhaps underpreparing him or her for its precision and tangibility. The film certainly has far more story than, say, a Stan Brakhage short: it contains both personal and professional development, it conveys a lot about character, it draws on an identifiable surrounding time and place, it has a beginning and middle and end, in that diegetic order. It even has a certain amount of dry, arch comedy, mostly based in the protagonist's suffusing self-regard and unrepentant militarism. In all these respects it's a remarkable feat of condensation, even making time for what may appear like digressions, such as the precious moments devoted to a waiter as he fills a drinks order. It perhaps feels least like a poem in its montage of (apparently genuine) newspaper headlines that advocate for German rearmament, self-servingly citing the Bible and concluding by asking whether Germany will be a hammer or a nail, but at the same time this constitutes the most dramatic expansion of the filmic space. Viewed at a time when class-based expectation and division is only reasserting itself, and when post-war institutions are under escalating economic and political threat, the film feels like a warning, even a stern one, but it never feels confined by advocacy; the hard-edged specificity is always in conversation with the asserted abstraction, allowing the feeling of a film at once oppressive and yet strangely liberating. The final note, an assertion of embedded social power that no one's ever dared to oppose, goes unanswered within the film, but sets a challenge for Straub-Huillet's ensuing body of work, with its emphasis on resistance and engagement.
Drama or comedy?
Horst_In_Translation25 June 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This is a black-and-white short film which runs for 16 minutes and was made over 50 years ago by French filmmakers Straub and Huillet based on Heinrich Böll's work. The two worked together on many many films spanning over several decades. However, with their film "Machorka-Muff", which is the name of the protagonist I am really not sure what message they are trying to send. IMDb credits this as a drama, but with all the supposedly-funny names I am really not so sure about it. And the action in here was in fact almost too weird to classify it in a genre. Lead actor Kuby wrote some more film pieces, but did not act again and died ten years ago way in to his 90s. The other actors in here did not reappear on screen either. Maybe this is not the worst thing as I found their performances not really impressive, gently-put. The only reason to watch this for is probably the weirdness of the entire thing if you like that kind of films. I feel no need to ever see it again. Not recommended.
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