Czech Film Diamonds of the Night

Diamonds of the Night

One of the overwhelming themes which stayed with me upon screening of the Czech film Diamonds of the Night (1964) by Jan Nemec was the motif of everything being illusory. This film definitely played with the notion that perhaps everything is a dream or an illusion. Throughout the film images are presented time and again and there's very little validation to demonstrate what is actually real vs. what is not. For example a very basic image of that essentially sums up this notion is the moment when the wheel on the stroller falls off, but the stroller continues to function as though nothing had happened. This puts the viewer in a truly provocative place. The viewer is then forced to reconcile what has just been seen. Did the wheel actually fall off? If so, why is the stroller able to function without interruption? Which image is real, the image of the wheel tumbling off the stroller or the subsequent image of the stroller functioning properly? This is a delicate dynamic that Nemec is able to play with very deftly. Nemec strikes a strong balance between the real, the unreal, the hyper-real and the imagined, and he is able to do that in such a way that it forces the spectator to constantly question and to bring his or her own hyper-awareness to everything that is being processed onscreen.

One fascinating device that Nemec uses with great skill throughout the film is via the function of the flashback. Nemec uses the flashback as a way to represent trauma and how memory can sometimes function in a spotty or incomplete fashion when trauma has occurred. For instance, the first flashback shows a boy getting on the train with a KL jacket, representative of a form of concentration camp jacket. Other flashbacks show the half-starved prisoners wearing striped clothes typical of those on their way to a concentration camp. Nemec uses these flashbacks with great care and a strong amount of aplomb. In more mainstream films, it's very common to see directors use flashbacks as a means of explaining, or over-explaining the presence of something or the reason why something happened. Nemec is wise to not fall into that trap. Instead Nemec just gives us small hints as to why something might be occurring. Nemecc suggests when other film directors tend to explain. Nemec is able to keep the experience of trauma and how trauma can disrupt memory in a continuous and consistent manner. For example, we are told the film is about two boys escaping a train that is imminently taking them to a concentration camp. Thus, after this happens, we continue to see flashes of the boys and the events which occurred after they escaped from the train: we see their dirtiness, we see them hiding under branches, walking between buildings, walking down a road in the forest, running from a cemetery.

Within this use of flashbacks, Nemec continues to engage in strong and consistent symbolism. For instance, the image of the boys running from the cemetery is demonstrative of them running from death: in a manner, at least at first, it seems as though the boys have outsmarted death, have cheated death. The image of the ants which is revisited over and over again and this is something which is used to convey a sense of the smallness and the helplessness of the boys. Unprotected and alone, they are as fragile and as flimsy as the ants in the forest, the ants which crawl over their hands. There's a strong suggestion that these boys could also be stomped out and forgotten as simply and effortlessly as the ants which are shown repeatedly.

Another motif that the film plays with is the idea that even when one is with something, one is still dealing with the lack of something. This is most commonly portrayed in art through the idea that even in life we are in death. For instance, the presentation of the woman who gives the boys the bread and milk: interlaced with that sequence are images of one boy hitting and killing her. Through that choice Nemec highly suggests that even in life we are in death, that all opposites are co-existing with one another at all times. Generosity and scarcity, gratitude and cruelty, existence and pain. In fact, Nemec demonstrates this to be true more than ever when one boy cannot eat the food that he is given simply because he has scurvy. This demonstrates yet another coexistence of opposites which is that with bounty there is lack: with food there is still hunger. This is comparable to the images of the people sledding in the snow: in the midst of the desolation and the barren frigidity, there are still people who are enjoying life and having a good time. In the midst of war, there is still merriment.

Another quality of life that Nemec plays with via the angles he chooses to shoot things in is the fleeting and ephemeral quality of life. Just as in life we are in death, Nemec constantly demonstrates that just as we are experiencing something, it is soon gone or soon taken from us. Nemec often composes shots from the perspective of the moving train or shoots in a manner where the camera is in seeming constant, unstoppable motion, much like the passage of time or the unavoidability of death.