For my second outside screening, I went to The Museum of Modern Art to see the 1971 Yugoslavian film Plastic Jesus by Lazar Stojanovic. Going into the film, I had a few expectations just from doing a little bit of reading about it online. I was expecting to see a collage of political dissent, explicit sexuality, and religious critiques. Although these themes definitely define the film, I struggled to get a hold on what exactly Stojanovic was trying to say, and perhaps that was the point. The threadbare storyline serves as a backdrop for Stojanovic’s bricolage of leftist ideology and social revolution.
One of the main functions of Plastic Jesus is to shock. Stojanovic was put in jail for his film, for anti-state activities and propaganda. Obviously the political message was a direct confrontation with Yugoslavia’s authoritarian communist regime, but more shocking to me (even in 2016) was the aggressiveness of the film, both in it’s style and in it’s treatment of sexuality. I’m far from a prude, but I was very put off by the films use of sex and representation of gender. It seems as though Stojanovic was trying to show a anarchistic view of sex and gender, but rather than being rooted in liberation and freedom, it was misogynistic and reckless. In 1971, I’m sure Stojanovic could have been seen as progressive and perhaps even feminist in his open and frank presentation of sexuality, but to me, Stojanovic’s liberal view of sexuality is very much patriarchal and comes solely from a male perspective. The women in Plastic Jesus are independent and sexually free, but they exist in the film as objects and indulgences for the main character. Although there was a story, it was so disjointed and thin that it is unclear what relationships the main character, a filmmaker named Tom, has with the women in his life. What is clear however, is that women do not have any intellectual or ideological agency, and act as transients, popping in and of the film only to shock the audience with their frank sexuality.
Admittedly, the specific political motivations of Plastic Jesus were lost on me. I know very little about Yugoslavia, but political resistance and dissent came through very clearly in the film. The ideology behind this resistance seems very jumbled and inarticulate. In the film, Tom is many times identified as an anarchist, an ideology that is reflected in the film’s style, but ultimately I find myself confused as to how his anarchy functions in the context of the greater socio-political landscape. Stojanovic interrupts his story with appropriated Nazi footage and some pretty spectacular found material from the very early days of cinema (including footage of a couple having sex in a forest, that seems to be from the 1920’s). The Nazi images of course oriented me into a political framework, a clear objection to fascist authoritarianism and violence. But again, I felt like I was missing something. Plastic Jesus finds its climax in a spectacular sequence in which the main character, Tom, stands on a balcony with a shotgun, aiming and firing below. His gunshots are cut between graphic images of corpses stacked on top of each other, in various states of decay. The shots of the corpses signal that the violence was that of genocide, war, and torture, although again, the exact context is lost on me. I was very impressed with this sequence. It was incredibly powerful, and it’s solemnity was felt wholly and introspectively as a consequence of the politics the film was opposing.
Although I can’t say that I enjoyed Plastic Jesus, or even that I understand it, overall I feel glad to have seen it. At the very least, Stojanovic implores his audience to react. The disruptive nature of the film provokes thought and challenges assumptions. I definitely felt challenged watching the film, and I feel that ultimately it was a constructive experience for me.