The Deserter and the Nomads (1968) User Reviews

I waited a long time to watch this film

[jrd_73 · 6/10 · 1 June 2012]

I waited a long time to watch this film, first reading about it in an issue of Shock Cinema and later in Amos Vogel's Film as a Subversive Art (two very different but equally interesting publications). The descriptions in both sources painted the picture of a howling, surrealist anti-war film. I was curious. After a decade, I tracked down an English subtitled copy through All Clues No Solutions. Was it worth the wait?

Made during the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, The Deserter and the Nomads is an anthology of war, opening with a story set in WWI, then one at the end of WWII, and, finally, in a post-apocalyptic world. One reoccurring character is the only narrative link to the stories. In the first episode, a gypsy soldier deserts and returns home. The gypsy hides out from his troop who want to kill him. This story, my favorite, brought to mind some of Emir Kusturica's work (Black Cat, White Cat, particularly) with its view of gypsy life. However, the humor here is much darker. In the second episode, a seller of eggs stumbles into a village where a rag tag militia is imprisoning and executing all strangers. The setting is the close of WWII. This story builds to the best scene in the film, involving guns and a flock of geese. The final story opens in an underground asylum/nursing home. The lone nurse, a young woman, has apparently lived underground her whole life and has never seen the outside world. She and a mysterious stranger escape into the world only to find no one left. This episode dragged. Once the couple came out of the underground asylum, they talked, moped around, and not much happened. The cinematography was still good, but the drama was not there. I was reminded of Glen and Randa, another meandering late 60's apocalyptic film.

The Deserter and the Nomads: Two good stories and a fair, at best, one. Not bad percentage wise, but my expectations were high. Those with lesser ones, may like the film more. Incidentally, this is the third Juraj Jakubisko film I have watched and it falls in the middle. An Ambiguous Report on the End of the World was better, but Birds, Orphans, and Fools was, in my opinion, much worse.

A haunting war film, which fills the mind with wonder and horror.

[NateManD · 9/10 · 28 June 2005]

Juraj Jakubisko's "The Deserter and the Nomads" is a film that is almost impossible to find. The only copy I was able to track down had Italian subtitles. So, I had to figure out what was happening. I must say, the visuals had me in awe. Some of the costumes of the film feel otherworldly. Czech and Slovak folk dresses, men with feather hats and other assorted nomadic peasant fashions. The film is divided into three parts; World War I, World War II and a post apocalyptic waste land in the future. All three parts of the film contain the character of death, who is a tall bald man with a frightening appearance. In the first story, a soldier deserts the army and causes havoc in his town. Death soon follows. The second part deals with World War II and contains a massacre of a peasant family by Russian soldiers. Even children fall victim. The scene was sad and haunting. Death follows in the second part, even to make sure that the cat's dead. Then we witness a collage of bloody and bizarre images, war stock footage and a vision of the future. Jakubisko's vision of the future in the third part, is disturbing and horrifying. He combines elements of biblical prophecy, sci-fi and folk tales in his bleak future. The images of nude old people running around in a underground insane asylum bomb shelter, filtered with sepia tones; may be a bit much for some viewers. It almost reaches the weirdness of a Jodorowsky film. Then we see death talking to a nurse. An old man spits up blood and other strange things occur. Death and the girl, escape through a rat infested sewer. When they finally see light, it's a post war wasteland without any people. There's cracked parched land and planes that drop bombs even on the forest. You know things are bad when death starts to fear for his life. Ironically when Jakubisko was filming, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. Although the film did well in festivals, it was later confiscated, and held in a vault for about twenty years. Columbia pictures bought the rights to it in the late sixties, and since then the film has faded into oblivion. Jakubisko had to buy a print from Columbia pictures, just so he could have a copy. For how old this film is, the violence is savage and brutal like Sam Peckinpah's the "Wild Bunch", Jodorowsky's "El Topo" and almost sometimes as disturbing as Arrabal's "Viva la Muerte". It's virtually impossible to describe the film.Think of directors Segei Paradjanov, Milos Jancso, Emir Kusterica, Fellini, Peter Greenaway, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal to get an idea of it's style. It's not my favorite film from this director, but I must say it's haunted me for months. The musical score is sad and emotional. I love the song on the record player towards the end of the film. I wish I could find the music for the film and I hope for a DVD release. For similar eastern European post apocalyptic craziness, check out Darko Mitrevski's "Goodbye 20th Century.

PS. Since reviewing this film 5 years ago, I finally found a good print. Check various torrent sites for an amazing TV rip from Czech television. Plus there's English SRT subtitles available on online. I haven't yet figured out how to add them. Also little did I know, the man behind the haunting film score is Stepán Konícek, the conductor who helped out with such films as "City of Lost Children", and both David Lynch's "Lost Highway" and "Muholland Drive".

Spirited but wearying.

[magus-9 · 4/10 · 4 March 2004]

This is a very energetic, very strange, very shrill film about death in a surreal Slovakia. Three episodes cover three different historical periods, two in the past, one in a post-nuclear-apocalypse future. If you take the most strident bits of middle- or late-period Fellini, cross-pollenate that with the obscure, balletic late films of Jancso, add the geese- and gypsy-milieu of Kusturica, and you might have an idea of what this is like to watch; there's a lot of invention and colour, but it's so highly strung and shrilly pitched that the film swiftly becomes a bit grating, and frequently dull. However, a curio, and probably worth seeing once.