Fernando Arrabal – Le cimetière des voitures AKA Car Cemetery (1983)
Quote:
Based on Arrabal’s play of the same name, Car Cemetery is sort of an eighties punk rock version of the Christ story. We follow the life of a messianic figure from birth through to his death although instead of taking place in and around the Middle East it’s set in a post apocalyptic garbage dump full of rusty, broken down cars and it’s populated by various degenerates – pimps, prostitutes, and other nefarious types.
Our messiah this time around is named Emanou (Alain Bashung) and his goal is to put on a rock concert for the citizens of the junkyard into which he was born. Of course, the powers that be see him as a threat and while he does go around making the world around him a better place, eventually he is betrayed and his people turn on him.
Those more familiar with Arrabal’s earlier efforts will feel right at home with this picture. It lacks much of the violence that made films like Viva La Meurte as shocking and powerful as they are but it’s definitely a showcase for Arrabal’s penchant for the bizarre. The plot is pretty basic and it’s really just made up of a series of set pieces lifted from The Bible, but he puts enough of his own spin on it that it’s always interesting and just unfamiliar enough that you’ll want to see how it plays out. On a visual level the film feels a bit dated and its eighties roots and heritage show through in the fashions, hairstyles and mannerisms (80s punk fashion hasn’t aged nearly as well as 70s punk fashion has) but that doesn’t really hurt the film much, it simply labels it as a product of its time.
There doesn’t really seem to be much of a point to the picture, instead it feels like a strange piece of art for art’s sake, but for some that’ll be reason enough. The sets look very stagey and you definitely feel as if you’re watching a play more so than a movie but Bashung’s performance as the savior of the trash heap is a good one. There’s plenty of social commentary to feast on and no shortage of bizarre visuals and imagery to enjoy and this is by far the most interesting film in the set.
Fernando Arrabal - (1981) Car Cemetery.mkv General Container: Matroska Runtime: 1 h 26 min Size: 991 MiB Video Codec: x264 Resolution: 684x480 ~> 800x480 Aspect ratio: 5:3 Frame rate: 25.000 fps Bit rate: 1 405 kb/s BPP: 0.171 Audio #1: car 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s
https://nitro.download/view/1736313D8CFD2CE/Fernando_Arrabal_-_(1981)_Car_Cemetery.mkv
Language(s):French
Subtitles:English, Russian