Black Peter - CLASSICS

Original title: Černý Petr

Directed by: Miloš Forman

Country: Czechslovakia

Length: 85 min.

Year: 1964

Premiere: Locarno Film Festival

Availability: Second Run DVD (blu ray) , Carlotta (boxset, French) 

GOLDEN LEOPARD - LOCARNO 1964

Synopsis: days in the life of teenager Petr, as he starts a new summer job, dates a girl, seems aimless to his father.

PETR THE LOSER?

The title references a popular central european card game that features a card, the "black peter" (or "ace of spades" if played with french-suited cards, hence this translation of the title in some areas), which is an undesired card that players must pass onto each other to win. Yet, Petr, the protagonist of Miloš Forman's debut film, hardly feels like a scrap of society or a good-for-nothing, even if this is the slight perception that often other characters have of him - especially his father during his final lecture. Petr's decency becomes clear if seen in comparison with Čenda, an immature teen that briefly becomes a sort of deuteragonist of the film, an apprentice mason that gets more sympathy from adults for his "hard working attitude" - but none of them see his very naive and immature behaviour with girls his age or with Petr.  Rather than actually being a film about a lazy teenager, Black Peter is more generally a film about teenage, and the perception of it by adults. 

PETR THE OBSERVED

The act of observation is repeatedly relevant in the film, starting from Petr's job at the shop, which is to observe customers to avoid theft. In a later scene, Petr glances through a peephole at Pavla to see her change, or the shop owner and him contemplate a renaissance painting. During the ball scene, Čenda's character's interactions with a blonde girl that he wants to dance with are mostly codified by glances away and to each other, and ends with Čenda first loosing sight of her, and then finding her talking amiably with another boy. This voyeurism of sorts that is exemplified in the film can be extended to the whole meaning of the film, which never provides a proper insight into Petr's character, and portrays him as a subject that is observable but somewhat unattainable, whose thoughts are seldom appariscent.

PETR'S FATHER

The character of the father, portrayed by Jan Vostrčil (who will also be in Forman's The Firemen's Ball) is perhaps one of the most nuanced ones in the film. Introduced while lecturing Petr for his lack of commitment at work, it becomes more and more apparent that he is moved by the need of understanding his son, but ends up falling back to his authoritative role, unable to connect. This becomes apparent for example in the scene where Petr returns from the ball, and is "interrogated" by his mother about the evening, and the father intervenes for the first time only to scold Petr when he answers somewhat harshly to his mother. Afterwards, he reccommends Petr a book about puberty, but Petr claims that he has already read that book - leaving the father unable to educate his son. Even the final scene starts with a conversation in which the father seems more interested in hearing about Petr's day at work, and ends into yet another scolding. It is emblematic that the final frame of the film is a freezed shot of the father about to start his lecture, to signify his inability to comprehend his son's generation, or to vibe on his wavelength.

PETR THE NON-CONFORMIST

The shop in the communist czechslovak system, as in the other states of the Soviet sphere, has the connotation of a means of control: food is available but with state imposed limitations. The concept of spying on the customers to catch them in the act and denounce them "for their good" is eerily similar to the practices of secret polices in Cold War era East Europe. Black Peter can be read as a film about a nonconformist that cannot comply with the system. Petr's work at the shop is an attempt to fit him in an ideology where the population is in constant surveillance, but when he is confronted with situations where he is supposed to expose someone, he is thorn, and by the end of the film he is very reluctant about his job. In this aspect, the immature, borderline dumb Čenda is the emblem of a conformist, that acts in totally random and immature fashion, but is much more accepted than Petr, who seems more reflexive. In this interpretation, the father, rather than loving but distant, is part of the estabilishment, that extends its hands in his personal life.

CZECH NEW WAVE

Black Peter has been consolidated in cinema history as a seminal work of the Nová Vlna, traditionally started in 1963 with Štefan Uher's The Sun in a Net. Forman's debut film has the merit of kickstarting the international fame of Czechslovakian cinema of this making with its achievement of the Golden Leopard at Locarno. Often it has become a film used to determine the "tenets" of a movement that should be rather described as the fortunate result of a generation of filmmakers that studied together and that frequently discussed the cinematic art, out of similar interests. Yet, it is true that in Black Peter there are similarities to The Joke by Juraj Herz in its criticism to the estabilishment, or to Jaromil Jireš in Closely Watched Trains for its focus on teenage. Forman's debut also has the merit of utilising non-professional actors in fictional cinema, something that has been present persistently in indipendent european cinema of the Soviet block in the following decades, and that central-east european cinema is lately rediscovering in films such as Bread and Salt by Damian Kocur.