A Party for Karl Marx

A Party for Karl Marx is the latest experimental feature film from filmmaker Jorge Villacorta. Having reviewed two of this individual’s works before, I can say that I’ve started to get used to the man’s bizarre and occasionally disturbing idiosyncrasies – that doesn’t mean, however, that the work is more conventional. This bizarre piece – which is the most enjoyable and somehow cohesive of the three reviewed – tells the story of a man in a suit who keeps leaving nearly incoherent voicemails for somebody called “Friedrich”. Like the entries in his Disrupted Expectations series, the film is based around a series of grainy static shots which show our protagonist wandering around his now iconic warehouse, talking to himself. Viewers will be shocked to see that Villacorta takes some rather big swings in this particular picture, and tries to incorporate some visual ideas previously unseen within his films.

We open on a frame which states that this is a “social science fiction film”. It’s certainly social (every piece of dialogue is about politics, even when it’s completely superficial); but it is in no way science-fiction. Then again, maybe this is akin to the way John Cassavetes labels his drama Husbands as a “comedy” in its opening moments. Maybe not. Quite early in this most recent effort, our main character says, “To others, I may look like a mad man.” This is one of the most explicit and honest bits of speech we’ve ever seen by this man, and you can’t help but consider how he really thinks he’s reading on camera.

The most amazing development, in comparison to the previous two features, is the fact that this movie genuinely has a narrative arc of sorts. The first act (if you can call it that) involves the character talking about his “modest intellectual prowess”; the fact that he just wants to read books, and find other like-minded people to join him in a political revolution. The irony is that instead of receiving the “communist party” he wished for, what appears to be taking place is a birthday party. These shots of the party are very unsettling – clearly the filmmaker did not have permission to record all of these people, and he gets caught on multiple occasions. By the end of the movie, he starts to say things like, “The people don’t know what’s good for them”, and, “We will rule over them”. Is this an origin story for a Stalin-esque figure? It’s quite funny when viewed as a satire.

This film is not well-made and it’s also not watchable – witnessing the man down five glasses of wine while eating slice after slice of pork from a plastic bag is a deeply unpleasant viewing experience to say the least. That does not mean, though, that it is without merit. There’s honestly a great deal to enjoy in the ironic nature of this movie. And there are also plenty of ideas that you can interpret in a whole range of ways. How ‘in on the joke’ our main character is would be difficult to say. When I reviewed his fist film, I was quick to dismiss him completely – and, even if he’s not the god-like “intellectual” the character keeps saying he is, the man is certainly more attuned and self-aware than I ever gave him or his fictional personas credit for. The film is still poor, but you’ve got to admire the continuing effort to be a truly independent filmmaker, visual artist and/or provocateur. It’s also hilarious to consider some guy called Friedrich receiving 73 minutes' worth of voicemails.