1985, The Philosophical Slaughterhouse Under the Bridge. Various locations in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia; performance edited on Super 8mm film with audio, 18 minutes.
Performance: Milan Kohout Music: Vladimir Grulich Cinematography: Jiri Dvorsky
The performance, accompanied by a long poem, dealt with religious questions and the search
for the meaning of life by people in totalitarian Czechoslovakia. At that time, only materialistic philosophies were disseminated by the government. The blinded and uniformly clothed performer investigated abandoned places (such as dirty corners under a railroad bridge and scrap-yard depository sewers in the largest industrialized city in the country), while the film cutaways represented his inner life. Because of its subject, the film won no prizes and barely escaped confiscation by the police. It entered the underground culture, however, was copied to video, and was distributed by Vokno, the samizdat video magazine. The film was very highly valued by Vaclav Havel, the future president of Czechoslovakia, who was at that time was merely a regular member of the dissident movement called “Second Culture.”
