Golem (1980) User Reviews

Kafkaesque claustrophobia meets surrealism in a sci-fi retelling of a classic story

[chaos-rampant · 23 December 2008]

As the opening credits and the title reveal, Piotr Szulkin's debut proper, following a series of experimental shorts and TV work, is a retelling of Gustav Meyrink's classic story of the Golem, a clay figure magically animated by a rabbi to protect a Jewish community somewhere in Germany. Szulkin emphasizes the prophetic nature of the story by transposing it somewhere in the near future, with scientists experimenting with eugenics to create a new race of superhumans after witnessing the devastating effects of a nuclear war.

Unlike Paul Wagener's automaton-with-a-heart from his silent classic of German expressionism, Szulkin's golem is a common man in appearance and more human than the actual humans in heart and soul. His name is Pernat and he's a copper craftsman living in a shabby apartment block. The first scene finds him interrogated for the murder of a doctor that lived in a nearby apartment, a murder he knows nothing about. The nightmarish, claustrophobic mood established by this early scene that seems to recall Kafka's THE TRIAL is sustained throughout, embedded from all sides with surrealism, dark humour, social commentary and general absurdity.

A great example of the socially-minded dark surrealism Szulkin goes for is a scene where Pernat, our golem, is invited into a cinema by the cranky old father of a girl he meets, or as he calls it the Church of Transfiguration. Once inside Pernat witnesses the projection of a commercial, sung by children voices to the tune of the Christmas carol, advertising sleeping pills (called 'Happy Dorm' - "sleep from night to morning is what Happy Dorm will bring")! The commercial follows a particularly creepy second one advertising plastic surgery. As all this is happening the father who is sitting next to him is dozing off. He then walks to the toilet (which is plastered with posters portraying FRANKENSTEIN, THE WOLF MAN and PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES) and removes his own face, while the cleaning lady is slamming on the door.

Later on, another character rants on about the voyeurism of theater audiences, how they watch movies for sentimentality and schmaltz, so they can feel themselves more human compared to the characters on screen. What may sound as the disillusioned preaching of an avant-garde director speaking through his own characters, bears relevance to the larger frame of the movie. As one of the scientists who created Pernat replies to the question of another: "what makes you so sure (Pernat) is human?".

Filmed around a shabby apartment block in dark orange hues, like the sepia tinting of a silent film, GOLEM works more often than not, has a point to get across, and in the same time marks Szulkin as a visionary auteur in his own right. His later sci-fi movies were more playfull and inventive (no doubt helped by significantly higher budgets), but the social commentary, satiric approach and black humour are constants in his work. From the claustrophobic opening to the enigmatic ending, with its kafkaesque ambiance and small tributes to other films (THE TRIAL, BRAZIL, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and possibly CITIZEN KANE in the end-credits scene), GOLEM is worth your time.

Sublime narrative artifact of a not so unlikely undesirable future

[figueroafernando · 9/10 · 6 August 2022]

Filtered as if from an insane technicolor stroboscopic, and yet, from the most gloomy and pathetic gloom, Pernat, guinea pig of undesirable times, (those that come after the nuclear), embodies in this dystopian and sly narrative artifact by Szulkin and Sobolweski , the execrable postmodern purpose of eugenics, an intention that since Shelley was Prometheus failed, let's add to this improved man token, the mantra of the "scientists" who claim to improve it: <Remember, Happiness is your dutty>. So, the world survived, if you want to understand it that way, the nuclear offensive and counteroffensive; only so that, through the streets there are regiments, in redoubled step, as if they were musical war bands, and the Cinemas, which by the way show porn, like the Cinema Palace, keep inside the Church of the Transfiguration of Jesus. You have to go in!, and sing the "happy dorm, happy dorm" that works like a soma from Huxley's Brave New World. Now, does anyone give a dim who Pernat, this unwitting test subject, was, after all they took him from a prison. I am referring to when they begin to investigate the laboratory, after - by mistake, according to them, Pernat escaped - going to his attic, a cubbyhole that not even Faust would want to summon Mephistopheles, as if that were not enough, in the building where the apartment there is another collection of neighbors who, let's say, stroll through reality from time to time: the famous Holtrum, or Rozyna, aggressive whore who defends her brother, not because he is her brother but perhaps because of the 70 IQ that the guy must have to concentrate and cross four coherent words per minute (mostly offending father), and there's also dr. With bottle-bottomed glasses that for the first time says to Pernat, "you are an empty clay shell", which would make sense of the other neighbor who a few minutes before handed him, in the grimy corridors, a stack of dry seeds or shells what are they? "People, millions of people," he replies. I highly doubt that out of every thousand people who enjoy this work of cinematic art, 5 other than me find a sinister fascination in more than two scenes, like when they enter through the window of Pernat's room to fix his oven? And then we see him hanging from the building upside down like the Fool from the Tarot cards, or the elderly woman making the dolls of - who knows whose owners - but Pernat is not allowed to check under the doll's wig and in fact , Dr's daughter, checks Pernat's bald head while he checks the dolls, asking "do you still have the name of the doll's owner?" , the girl smiles nervously and replies "nobody checks under the wigs" . The most disturbing part, the cornerstone premise of eugenics, is when the "scientists" predict Pernat's imminent rebellion and, at that time, Pernat finds Rozyna crying, invites her to the movies, a key moment where she confesses why her father he does not love them, neither her nor her brother, because the father curses that there is no perfection of him in both. But this same scene, which has made me laugh sinisterly, perhaps because of the resonance with today because of the way in which what is only media is idolized, the scene, continues on the escalator as if it were a subway or underground train and while they ascend , from several TV screens of different sizes come the massive screams that mix with the strident rock vocalist in full concert on screen. Seeing Rozyna excitedly shouting "look, people!" Pernat tells him, but do you think they are real, that they exist? And when I reach the bottom of the stairs with the spotlight against me, I happen to Pernat like Truman in "Truman show" by crossing the screen and breaking it. There is not everything he saw, only the guitarist and the cameraman with the empty seats and seats around him. The furnace with the charred body, the rats frolicking in his attic he waded up the stairs to Rozyna playing with her broken doll, poof! Masterpiece!

Inert, Hard to Watch Movie with an Expressive Visual Style

[jrd_73 · 4/10 · 15 June 2019]

This Polish film looks nice. The use of color filters offers a standout look. Much of the film is bathed in yellow and red light. The look reminds me a little of the Russian science fiction films Letters from a Dead Man and Stalker. The latter is particularly noteworthy since director Piotr Szulkin clearly admires Andrei Tarkovsky. Unfortunately, this variation on the golem story is a slog to watch.

The confusing plot begins with the protagonist, Pernat, at a police station being interrogated about a murdered neighbor who lived in the same apartment building. Pernat seems confused about much of his past but because there is no evidence the police free the man. However, when he goes to collect his personal effects, he is given someone else's hat and coat by the unconcerned clerk. When Pernat returns home, the viewer is introduced to the other people who live in the building. They are all eccentrics. The rest of the film has the hero bouncing from one tenant to the next, finding all social relations difficult. Every now and then, the story is interrupted by a group of scientists discussing a project that went wrong. That is about it for plot. The viewer waits for something more sinister to develop, and waits, and waits. . . .

Almost nothing happens in this film. The director shows his various influences, Franz Kafka, Andrei Tarkovsky, the Tarot deck, and the legend of the golem, but the director fails to tell a coherent story. Sure, the film looks nice. Too bad it does not go anywhere.

Disappointing

[yourow · 1/10 · 2 May 2010]

I just saw Golem which was part of the Sci-Fi London 2010 line-up. It was a total disappointment.

The first review explains it as "Kafkaesque claustrophobia meets surrealism in a sci-fi retelling". What this really means is a movie that will make no sense, is full of absurd dialogue and situations and will end up wasting 92 minutes of your life.

Everyone in the film acted like morons, so the attempt by the Government to create super humans appears to have failed miserably.

As Sci-Fi it failed, and as social commentary; the message seems to have been lost in the telling.