Don't Stop

I didn’t believe it was possible to make a basically apolitical film about punk rock. Until I saw DonT Stop. It probably wasn’t easy to go against the “normal” dictated from above during the normalisation period of Czechoslovak history, but this film exerts minimal effort to convince us of that. It lacks an element that is utterly crucial for drama, namely conflict. The narrative is structured as a chain of musical performances connected by dialogue scene that are utterly unimportant as a result (the characters’ decisions are not in any way psychologically motivated – in the end, Miki “awakens” just as suddenly as his girlfriend changes her opinion of him). The almost endlessly playing loud music primarily serves to fill the awful content void and creates the illusory impression that  the members of the band called Émile Buisson are punk rockers who are just as tough as their music. However, we are not shown any evidence that would support this notion. The protagonists’ rebellion against the system happens – if it happens at all – without the presence of the camera. We don’t see any of their internal clashes or the clashes that they provoke with the powers that be. The peak of anarchy in their rendition is a mohawk, pierced ears (one of the film’s “harsher” scenes), disrespect for the elderly (their sole source of income is apparently the money they get from fencing the silver spoons that they steal from a kindly grandmother), destroying other people’s property and shouting “No future!” from a rooftop. I doubt that the group that supposedly served as the model for the filmmakers would have so weakly provoked the establishment and sailed through the reality of normalisation as smoothly. The motivations of the characters are unclear. The soft-hearted punks survive from concert to concert, cursing about the conditions and not doing much to change the situation. Though Miki talks about his wish to snap listeners out of their lethargy with culture shock, there is only one confrontation between the outsiders and the conformists in the whole film, and even that happens rather by accident. Řeřich’s debut is not only apolitical, but also visually appealing. There is no underground aesthetic of ugliness. When the shots are visually shifted away from TV-series grey, it is paradoxically towards the “cool” flashiness of advertising (with which the director has extensive prior experience). If not for archival news footage, you would quickly forget that you are actually watching a story set in the normalisation period. Instead of gradually advancing toward a certain twist, the dramatic break comes suddenly, at the moment when the idea of “a band of punks on tour” is exhausted by the screenwriters (while the real potential of the theme remains almost untapped). The result is a startling halt and a disturbing change of atmosphere from a feel-good musical film into something like a psychological thriller. The filmmakers’ very cynical sense of humour is, unfortunately unintentionally, shown in the deliberate ending, which seems to be thoroughly in line with the statutes of the Socialist Youth Union. Those who still think punk isn’t dead will have to wait for a real Czech punk-rock movie. According to DonT Stop, domestic punk has been lifeless since the eighties. 35% (06/08/2012) (less) (more)