THE GORILLA BATHES AT NOON

Germany/Yugoslavia, 1993, 83 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Dusan Makavejev.

The Gorilla Bathes at Noon is a film by eccentric Yugoslav (Serbian) director Dusan Makavejev. While making films from the early 1950s, he made an international impact only twenty years later with his WR Mysteries of the Organism. He went on to make such controversial films as Sweet Movie and Wet Dreams. His three films of the 1980s were quite striking: Montenegro, The Coca- Cola Kid (made in Australia with Eric Roberts and Greta Scacchi) and Manifesto. He made only three films in the 1990s including this one.

Makavejev has the Serbian tradition of a rather wild imagination, an emphasis on wild behaviour – though this film is much more subdued than his previous ones. Basically, an official is caught in Germany, telephones Moscow for instructions, finds that his wife has left him and that somebody else has moved into his apartment. He decides to remain in Berlin and lives in the no-man’s land, having only an urn, his uniform and a bicycle. This leads him to contact with the black market and the underground – and his attempts at survival.

1.The impact of the film? Interest? A film of the 90s? Post- Soviet era? The work of Makavejev, his idiosyncratic interests and style?

2.The title, the focus on the zoo, the bathing, Victor, in Berlin?

3.Berlin, the history of its past, the present of the 1990s? The Berlin film tradition, the movies, the Reichstag, Leni Reifehnstahl’s films?

4.The blend of reality and fantasy? The movie style? The background of Lenin?

5.The collapse of the wall, the changes in Germany, the meaning of the post-war era? Berlin and the Soviet presence? The Russian sector? The wall? Troops and the police? Oppression? Change, the modern era?

6.Victor being late for the train, staying in Berlin, the phone call, the information about his wife, the man moving in? There being no place for Victor in the Soviet Union, in Berlin? His decision to live in the no-man’s land? His sense of wonder? The encounters? The urn, the uniform and the past? His flight? Hunger, the deals? Sexual issues? The black market, the underground, the baby? The girlfriend?

7.The characters in his life, in his past, in his present? His capacity for relationship? For survival?

8.The character of Lenin, friendship, support?

9.The other characters, the Germans, the police, Miki and her mother, the underground, the Turks, Frau Schmidt, the dealer, the journalist?

10.A glimpse of Germany in the 1990s – and anticipation of its future? And the collapse of the Soviet empire? The consequences for people like Victor?