Happy End

an incredibly unique film and very experimental in its structure in an impressive way that seems ahead of its time. and that experimentalism is the entire premise of the film - a man who in our reality is killed after murdering his wife, but in a fictional one is reborn in death and goes through the his life backwards, as though living his life out normally.

it’s a very strange film, and rather humorous at times because the dialogue is backwards and therefore comedically mismatched. a fun watch, but the reverse does get a little repetitive by the end in my opinion. anyway i liked it; to be reborn in death is a beautifully poetic idea, though this film deals with it rather comically. 

luckily a friend of mine got me this on dvd, and czech films are hard to come by. so thanks to him for the gift! made my czech challenge a little easier…

an incredibly unique film and very experimental in its structure in an impressive way that seems ahead of its time. and that experimentalism is the entire premise of the film - a man who in our reality is killed after murdering his wife, but in a fictional one is reborn in death and goes through the his life backwards, as though living his life out normally.

it’s a very strange film, and rather humorous at times because the dialogue is backwards and therefore comedically mismatched. a fun watch, but the reverse does get a little repetitive by the end in my opinion. anyway i liked it; to be reborn in death is a beautifully poetic idea, though this film deals with it rather comically. 

luckily a friend of mine got me this on dvd, and czech films are hard to come by. so thanks to him for the gift! made my czech challenge a little easier…

Happy End is a thematically simple yet extremely complex and well-orchestrated experimental black comic oddity where time runs in reverse. We begin with the inverse of an execution, a dismembered head flying back to the corpse of our protagonist Bedrich — signified by his narration as his birth and to be interpreted as akin to the cutting of the umbilical cord — and we track what lead to his demise, all the way to the very technical beginning of his life where he's a child in a crib — seen as his last moments on this Earth, death. This whole operation is a temporal pincer.

If this played out in regular motion, it'd be a crime thriller about a guy falling in love, slowly fucking up his marriage, catching his wife in an affair, killing the guy she's cheating with, and being sentenced to death. But in reverse, it might just be one of the funniest films ever? Tragedy becomes comedy as punch-lines and set-ups swap places and action set-pieces become surrealist slapstick where people eat, run, jump, and fight along the mobius strip. Mordantly gleeful absurdism that goes to show just how far fucking around with camera techniques can get you.

Happy End is a thematically simple yet extremely complex and well-orchestrated experimental black comic oddity where time runs in reverse. We begin with the inverse of an execution, a dismembered head flying back to the corpse of our protagonist Bedrich — signified by his narration as his birth and to be interpreted as akin to the cutting of the umbilical cord — and we track what lead to his demise, all the way to the very technical beginning of his life where he's a child in a crib — seen as his last moments on this Earth, death. This whole operation is a temporal pincer.

If this played out in regular motion, it'd be a crime thriller about a guy falling in love, slowly fucking up his marriage, catching his wife in an affair, killing the guy she's cheating with, and being sentenced to death. But in reverse, it might just be one of the funniest films ever? Tragedy becomes comedy as punch-lines and set-ups swap places and action set-pieces become surrealist slapstick where people eat, run, jump, and fight along the mobius strip. Mordantly gleeful absurdism that goes to show just how far fucking around with camera techniques can get you.

i'm going to need to return to this film ... eventually

i'm going to need to return to this film ... eventually

Christopher Nolan could never.

Christopher Nolan could never.

No sólo la premisa es buenísima, te sorprende todo el tiempo con esa perspectiva dando lugar al drama y, sobre todo, la comedia.

No sólo la premisa es buenísima, te sorprende todo el tiempo con esa perspectiva dando lugar al drama y, sobre todo, la comedia.