In Slavic folklore, the Baba Yaga is a nasty-looking
witch who flies around in a giant pestle. She absconds with and eats
children. She lives in a shack built on top of giant chicken legs that
can move it around as it needs. Despite the ridiculousness of some of
her trappings, the Baba Yaga is quite a creepy mythological figure.
Think about it. A cackling (I assume she's a cackler) hag flying at you
from out of the darkness in a giant ceramics project. And you can just
see her moving all jittery, like a possessed character in a Sam Raimi
movie, can't you? Historically, she often must be sought out for some
piece of information or item which a story's hero or heroine needs to
accomplish his/her quest. That Baba Yaga does not make an appearance in
Corrado Farina's
Baba Yaga.
Valentina (
Isabelle De Funès) is a perky, flirty fashion photographer living in Venice (Italy, not California). Her quasi-beau, Arno (
George Eastman),
keeps trying to get into Valentina's bed, lamenting that he doesn't
know if he'll "ever be ready for that chick." After a
Eurotrash-populated party, Valentina rescues a dog from an oncoming car.
The car's driver, Baba Yaga (
Carroll Baker),
gives Valentina a ride home (we never find out what happened to the
dog) and snatches a clip from Valentina's garter belt, saying she will
return it after checking if Valentina fits her needs. Quickly
thereafter, Valentina finds that she may be unwittingly harming the
people around her, as she herself is being pulled into a role which will
bind her forever to the enigmatic blond witch.
Baba
Yaga's intent is plain from her first meeting with Valentina. She
means to have the photographer whether Valentina likes it or not. While Baba
says that their initial meeting was preordained, it doesn't necessarily
guarantee their eventual ending. What I found interesting in Baker's
performance here was the aggressiveness on display. Whenever she
appears she can be seen biting on something (the garter belt clip, a
necklace, her own knuckle). This constant baring of teeth is a display
of fierceness as well as being a statement of intent (though not in an
anthropophagic sense). Baba makes no bones about it. She wants
Valentina, and she will let nothing stand in the way of her goal. The
idea of a stranger, especially one as odd as Baba showing up out of the
blue and announcing that she's going to have you is at once scary and
seductive. It is doubly so when you introduce the overt Sapphic
connotations. The allure of the unknown in this respect is both
horrifying and enticing, especially considering that giving into this
particular temptation also forfeits one's freedom.
Baba's
seduction of Valentina, then, can be seen as a possible release from
repression. From the start, Valentina goes out of her way to display
her independence, refusing a ride home from Arno, declining to invite
Arno up to her apartment, and so on. Is this because she secretly has
these urges she would rather not acknowledge? Or is it because she
feels that by being so fiercely self-reliant outwardly, she can maintain
control of her life and her body? This freedom from repression can be
either a boon or a bane. Sometimes it creates the link needed to make a
character whole (or at least a springboard from which the rest of their
life can now progress). Sometimes it only speeds up a character's
ultimate destruction. It is the tension created by this internal
struggle that propels the film forward and gives the viewer so much to
consider along the way. This also takes into account the equating of
sex with power in a relationship. Baba Yaga's assaultive drive to have
Valentina's body is juxtaposed with Valentina's more benevolent teasing
out of Arno's expectations, but it is no less powerful. Just because
the prey allows itself to be caught doesn't mean that the predator is
the victor.
(The following paragraph will probably offend any psychologists reading – you have my apologies in advance)
Baba Yaga
is an adaptation of a comic book by artist Guido Crepax, whose work is
informed and inspired by the concepts of psychoanalysis. In a Freudian
sense, the very ideas of homosexuality and bondage/sadomasochism and
their practitioners are considered perversions. Ergo, Baba Yaga can be
seen as an aberrant character, and Valentina's quasi-attraction to her
as equally off-key. But in a Jungian sense, neurosis is brought about
because "rationalism…has put (modern man) at the mercy of the psychic
'underworld'." It is interesting, therefore, that Baba Yaga is depicted
as being pallid, almost colorless, as if she sprang out of the
seemingly-bottomless pit in her house (which is also seen in Valentina's
dreams tellingly before finding it in Baba's place). She comes from
the underworld (or
an underworld, anyway), and she wants to drag Valentina back there with her (by the hair, I'm thinking).
There
are multiple nods to the film's origins, as well as juxtapositions of
film to comic books throughout the piece. When Valentina and Arno are
looking at a graphic novel, the drawn images are replaced by
monochromatic photos of the film's characters, as if they are captured
in the comic's panels. However, the panels progress and intercut with
live-action, making the statement that both forms are merely a
collection of still images. It is film's flicker fusion that provides
the illusion of action and movement. Yet, both forms draw the eye where
they want to through shot choice, composition, lighting, and so on.
They both control the pace of storytelling through the duration of their
"shots" and scenes. Smaller panels in a comic propel action forward
faster than large ones, and it's the same with a film's shot duration
and editing. This device is used at multiple times in the film and
provides a running motif. There is also the recurrence of Valentina's
flashbacks occurring in quick shots (sometimes live-action, sometimes
fumetti), furthering the idea of comic book panels on film, as well as
illustrating Valentina's mind for the viewer.
Baba
Yaga curses Valentina's favorite camera, calling it "the eye that
freezes reality." This camera then becomes a force of destruction to
things in motion. Valentina's career as a photographer is another
signifier of the power of one moment in time, as well as the thin veil
of perceived reality (she shoots magazine ads). Contrasted with Arno's
work in the commercial film industry (also a creator of advertisements),
Valentina's camera has the power to destroy the moving image, to force
it back into a collection of stills.
This
manipulation of reality extends into (and out of) Valentina's
dreamworld. She dreams of being brought before a Nazi officer (by two
female Nazi soldiers) and dropped into a bottomless pit. The pit will
later be found in Baba's house. Later, she dreams that she is a
Prussian soldier firing at a friend and colleague of hers who was hurt
by the cursed camera. Baba's servant appears and makes off with
Valentina's camera in a dream. Upon waking, the camera is gone. What
the viewer is ultimately left with is a world in which Valentina is not
only occupant but creator (either consciously or unconsciously), and
simultaneously neither, because the work is orchestrated by Crepax, but
in this version it is also orchestrated by Farina. Consequently, it
exists, as do the characters, on multiple planes of existence, all of
them fascinating to consider in their neverending dance.
MVT:
Crepax's original work (which, incidentally, I have not had the
pleasure of reading) is strong enough to translate into a film that,
while not perfect, leaves a lot to ponder.
Make Or Break:
The style and themes of the piece are both jelled and encapsulated by
the scene of Valentina and Arno in Valentina's apartment.
Score: 7.25/10
