I have made a lot of these lists over the years and I will do more in the future but the reason I like doing these is that I like to look at things from different perspectives. Warsaw Pact isn’t really a thing you think about much these days but I decided to do this anyway.

The countries of Warsaw Pact: Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Some of these, especially Soviet Union, also included other lands that are now independent nations and this distinction does leave Yugoslavia out. Not that all these countries got on the list. Actually, I was thinking that I should do a separate list for movies that came out of these countries after the Pact fell for comparison. The reason to do this would be to highlight certain countries, especially Romania, and their greatness in this regard.

So, why is it worth it do this specific demarkation? For fun, of course, but also because countries within the Soviet influence were in a weird situation. Sure, there were limitations. At least one of these movies was shadowbanned and at least one other was almost banned altogether. At the same time, in the period in which this Pact (1955-91) existed Hollywood movies went from the Golden Age, to 70s auteur years to 80s blockbuster era. There was never that same financial success within the pact but neither was there a need for it. In many ways the Western filmmakers were much more limited in what they were able to do, because there was that pressure to serve the lowest common denominator. This did lead to some wild movies… and some more traditional greats as well.

For an indicator on how wild these movies are, full seven of these movies are on the 366WeirdMovies list or their Apocryphal list, and one other has been covered by the site. Only four of them are on the Sight & Sound 2022 list which might kind of show you where my allegiances lie.

Note: I was using IMDb quite a bit to research this but since it is based on user inputted data and policies regarding countries has changed at some point, I can’t be sure I’ve found everything I’ve seen. I have this nagging feeling in the back of my brain that I’m missing something very obvious here. I just can’t figure out what it might be. (Well, I had another nagging feeling which was about Svankmajer but it turns out that he only managed to make one feature before Czechoslovakia broke up despite having made shorts for decades at that point.)

In chronological order.

Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (Poland, 1965, The Saragossa Manuscript)

Two officers from opposing sides during the Napoleonic Wars happen upon a book. Turns out, it’s about an ancestor of one of them, so they read it. The movie is this story. The story being very complicated and having stories within stories within stories as well as time loops, which do make this pretty hard to follow but that is also the point.

The “hero” we follow (he is not that much of a protagonist) meets a wide variety of characters, some of which might be somewhat racist, although I don’t remember anything especially egregious. Then again, I’m a white dude so I just might not catch those racist takes.

Ostre sledované vlaky (Czechoslovakia, 1966, Closely Watched Trains)

Miloš is hired as part of the crew at a train station during the German occupation of Czechia. Sure, the war is going on, but Miloš is still young and as such, he is just interested in getting laid. The movie does get very dark at times but it is also just a fun movie. At least for the most of the runtime. There is one pretty strong content warning though.

Sedmikrásky (Czechoslovakia, 1966, Daisies)

I Feel I have written about this movie quite a bit but I also realize that some of that writing has happened in places not really accessible for most people (at least not yet), so I might just write about it more.

This is the shadowbanned movie. The director had to work in directing ads under her husbands name for a while after this because she was also shadowbanned. This is about two women, both called Marie, who go on dates with men to get them to pay for their meals. They also live together and as they are very comfortable with each other, this has kind of become a queer movie as well.

And while the idea of this movie might feel simple, it is also quite a weird movie. It doesn’t really care about structures or character arcs or plots and yet it just somehow manages to be great.

Valerie a týden divu (Czechoslovakia, 1970, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders)

Third Czechoslovakian movie in a row and each time I write it, I have to think it through one letter at a time. There’s one more coming up. I should insert a typo into one of them just to make you guess.

Anyhow, Valerie is growing up and suddenly men are paying attention to her in a way she isn’t used to. The first time I saw this, I just didn’t get this. I needed some time to let it simmer in my brain but now I love it. Again, this is a very weird movie but that is to it’s benefit.

Voskhozhdenie (Soviet Union, 1977, The Ascent)

Easily the most grounded of these movies. It’s about two partisans in Belarus during the Nazi occupation working to find food for the group of refugees they are trying to keep alive in the harsh winter. This is just a gripping movie. This was the movie they almost banned before anyone had actually seen it. The reason they didn’t was that the director’s husband showed it to a general who had been a soldier in Belarus at the time and that general found it moving.

Stalker (Soviet Union, 1979)

Legendarily weird movie. One of those movies that you kind of get into when you start to delve into more artistic movies.

There is an area that has been isolated from the rest of the world because for some reason the laws of nature don’t quite work there. In many regards this is a very cheaply made sci-fi movie. They didn’t really have much in the way of special effects so much of what happens is just in your head and that’s just great.

Fehérlófia (Hungary, 1981, Son of the White Mare)

Now, I have only seen this without any kind of subtitles in Hungarian and even though Finnish and Hungarian are related languages, they are still different enough that I don’t understand anything. (Orban has actually even tried to distance the two languages for political reasons.) Also, the version I have I found on an online Bible store, because it just wasn’t available anywhere else. There is now a new edition but I haven’t found it in Europe.

This is based on myths and it is, once again, quite wild. There isn’t much in the way of dialogue so I probably haven’t missed much of the story but I’m not going to try to explain it either. Again, it’s based on myths and those often have very little structure to begin with. It does have a pretty unique animation style, though.

Idi i smotri (Soviet Union, 1985, Come and See)

A famously brutal shoot, especially considering the star is just a kid. This is about the brutality of the Nazi occupation in Belarus through the eyes of this kid.

Neco z Alenky (Czechoslovakia, 1988, Alice – literally Something from Alice)

Well, it is Alice in Wonderland made as a stop motion animation, even though there is a character who is an actual person.

Gorod Zero (Soviet Union, 1988, Zerograd)

This is very close to the fall of Soviet Union which might explain quite a bit about this movie. It’s about a man who goes out on a work thing where he needs to figure out whether a certain part is right for their process or something. I forget and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that his quest to do his job doesn’t really go anywhere. You kind of get a feeling that this is a satire of how badly the economy was functioning in Soviet Union at the end of it’s existence.