V - Closely watched drains: Notes by a dilettante on the Soviet absurdist film

Summary

1. While sitting in the bathroom, a man realizes that life stinks. No way out. No meaning. No sense.

The first time I read Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus was in high school. This is what I remember: the image of a man in the bathroom, facing a choice, to sink or to float. I also know what he chose.

2. While sitting in the bathroom, a man realizes that he will never get hot water again, not to mention new water pipes. Apparently our old man existentialist was right: Life is absurd. Only, the man in the bathroom does not know it. He has never read Camus. He does not care. All he cares about is the crooked water and sewerage system. This is a scene (or it could be a scene) from Fountain, a Soviet film of the era of glasnost.

3. The absurd is eternal, but absurdism is not. Specifically, it was born in pain and deceased in peace some time between The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and Fountain (1988). Unlike the absurd, which belongs to nature, absurdism was produced by culture. As with any artistic “-ism,” it had its own time.

4. Albert Camus, since he was crazy enough to declare that “Sisyphus must be regarded as happy,” is often regarded as a prophet of absurdism.