When I first saw 'Suspended Vocation,' 30 years ago, I immediately found it dizzying--& very, very funny. A great satire--one, as Ruiz himself put it, about institutions, especially the "mega-institution" of the Church--or (as a friend said after seeing it), perhaps the Party, too? (And maybe the self-imposed institution of cinephilia--several of the actors playing priests are film critics.)Anyway, making fun of the incestuousness of any self-absorbed movement ...
The two styles the film's shot in, whether color or black & white, are satiric of an amateur Expressionistic style & early cinema verite, each supposed to represent something of the contrary political views of the different parties who supposedly made either version of the film at different points in history, later spliced together by a third party to show "unity"--often hilariously doubling or even contradicting each other--as laid out in the "explanatory" introductory text.
Neither the review right above nor the one below mentions its humor ... How anyone could watch Edith Scob's "epiphany" in an unearthly light, the discovery of the two-headed cross under the pillow, or the "libertinage" session led by Gelin, much less the constant vague signalings & conspiratorial high signs, & not see that the film's at least tongue-in- cheek, is beyond me.
To call it pretentious, after saying it was "incomprehensible" to the viewer: as an old teacher of mine used to say, If it's pretentious, what's it pretending to be?
The two styles the film's shot in, whether color or black & white, are satiric of an amateur Expressionistic style & early cinema verite, each supposed to represent something of the contrary political views of the different parties who supposedly made either version of the film at different points in history, later spliced together by a third party to show "unity"--often hilariously doubling or even contradicting each other--as laid out in the "explanatory" introductory text.
Neither the review right above nor the one below mentions its humor ... How anyone could watch Edith Scob's "epiphany" in an unearthly light, the discovery of the two-headed cross under the pillow, or the "libertinage" session led by Gelin, much less the constant vague signalings & conspiratorial high signs, & not see that the film's at least tongue-in- cheek, is beyond me.
To call it pretentious, after saying it was "incomprehensible" to the viewer: as an old teacher of mine used to say, If it's pretentious, what's it pretending to be?