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“Sexmission”
Directed by Juliusz Machulski
Main characters played by Olgierd Lukaszewicz (Albert),
Jerzy Stuhr (Max),
Bozena Stryjkówna (Lamia),
Boguslawa Pawelec (Emma)
Wieslaw Michnikowski (Excellency).
Year of production - 1984,
“Darkness. I see darkness”. says Max right after waking up. One of the
nurses
informs him that this is a normal reaction after hibernation. Hibernation?!?
Albert – a biologist, who wanted to contribute himself to science, and Max –
a man who sought after popularity and money, had been chosen to try the new
invention of Dr. Kuppelweiser. They agreed to have their bodies frozen for 3
years and, if the experiment goes well, to become the first people who survive
such a long state of anabiosis. The experiment was tested on a monkey, prior to
that. The year this scientifically significant event occurred was August 9,
1991.
During Max and Albert’s hibernation a terrible war took place. Another
invention of Dr. Kuppelweiser, a negligently made bomb – intended to destroy
the enemy – proved to be fatal for man’s genes. The masculine part of the
population gave up the ghost. The Kuppelweiser’s radiation from the “M”
bomb forced women who survived to move underground, and to build cities in the
old mines. The development of a new way of procreating, parthenogenesis, allowed
them to reproduce without the need for men. They ate synthetic food and took
pills that turned their sex instinct into career-oriented approach. Before the
emergence of the two unexpected guests - Albert and Max - the whole
“country” flourished. Everyone knew their duties, with all female citizens
united under the command of an old lady they called Excellency.
After the discovery of Albert and Max’s freezing chambers and defrosting them
some 54 years after they’ve been put to hibernation, the women divided into
two factions: one group – the Genetics, wanted to do some scientific
experiments on, as they referred to them – extinct mammoths and use their
bodies as a source of nutrition; the second group – the Archeo wanted Albert
and Max to be naturalized. Naturalized? Well... they wanted to operationally
enlarge their breasts and, this could be drastic to some readers - castrate them.
None of these options were very appealing to our main characters. What other
choice they had but to try to escape – to get to the surface of the Earth.
They barely escape with their lives from the operation tables. One of the
scientists, Lamia, decides to help them. She steals environmental suits with
fish tank looking helmets, which allow people to survive one hour in the
radioactive environment, and the key to a tunnel that leads to “freedom”.
When they finally get out to the surface they see a destroyed, burned landscape.
Albert starts running and bangs his head into, what he thought to be the
surrounding landscape. He takes his knife out cuts a hole in what proves to be a
“wallpaper”. They all come through it and find themselves on a beach. Lamia,
who spent her whole live in the caves, starts playing in the water. Albert and
Max begin to walk in the opposite direction. Slowly they are running out of
oxygen. Suddenly Max notices a stork. If it can live so can we! – he screams.
They take off the environmental suits and continue on their journey. Meanwhile
one of the security officers chases them. There is only one, because there were
no more environmental suits (director’s digression on very common situations
in 1980’s when it was impossible to buy or “get” certain things in stores
and even if things were available – it wouldn’t be enough for everyone
standing in lines). To their surprise, in the middle of the woods they find a
cottage house. They come in and start feeling like at home. Finally they can
have some decent meal. Max teaches Lamia how to eat a croissant. At the same
time Emma, the officer, also runs out of oxygen but she is scared to take her
“fish tank” off. Albert, who notices her forces Emma to throw away the
environmental suit. Later both men are trying to teach ladies how to take
advantage of their femininity. Soon after they hear strange noises coming out of
the closet. They realize that what appeared to be a piece of furniture is
actually one of the elevators from the underground city. The person who comes
out of it turns out to be the Excellency herself. Unaware of the visitors she
starts to undress. She takes off her blouse and (!) her breasts. She actually is
a man. Max gets mad – the same person who wears fake breast, wanted two of
representatives his own kind sterilized!
I had to be crueler then them or they would suspect something was wrong!
Excellency tries to protect himself. He starts explaining that the radiation
wasn’t as serious as it was originally assumed. There was a great panic in the
beginning but since women adjusted themselves to living in mines there was no
point in changing it. It was also much easier to control these people when they
were stuck underground. Max and Albert get an idea how to renew the men
population. They dress as women, go back underground, and find cloning
laboratories where baby girls are grown. They add some sperm to every tube. They
hope that this time the epidemic of masculinity will not be destroyed. The movie
ends with a humorous scene showing a nurse changing diapers when to her utter
surprise, she notices that what she thought to be a girl is actually a boy.
A substantial part of the movie shows Albert’s and Max’s adventures while
they are wondering around the underground country, looking for the places to
hide from security officers and the “police”. Viewers are able to see
exaggerated class differences in the all-female civilization even though
officially all members of the society should be equal (notice similarity to
“Animal’s Farm” by George Orwell). Women in this movie represent the
repressed citizens under communistic regime. The Excellency stands for the
totalitarian government – while she pretends to be part of the system, she is
actually the exact opposite. She imposes restrictions on the citizens, however
she herself is not bound to obey them. While the entire population is forced to
live under horrible conditions, she is free to enjoy the goods in excess. This
parallel between the structures of women-ruled nation and communistic Poland is
so obvious that it is hard to believe that the communistic government in charge
in 1984 didn’t stop the production or at least censored some parts of the
script. It also explains a large success of the movie, as it was played in the
times where the issues just discussed were the main reasons for frustration, and
a sense of helplessness among the citizens of Poland.
Another positive thing about the movie is that it entangles political context
with comical dialogues between the characters. This provided not only for a
comical relief during viewing the movie, but it was actually a break from the
gray, monotonous reality of the lives the Poles were forced into. Finally the
most important aspect of the movie is that it offers hope – as mentioned
before Albert and Max succeed in defeating the all-female system. People
watching movies tend to translate cinematic situations onto real life, and it
was no different in this case. The very thought that the communistic system can
be conquered, was enough to redeem any shortcomings of the movie.
There was next to nothing of the camera action, not only because of the
limitations of the equipment, but also due to the fact that the film revolved
primarily around the dialogue. The imperfections were mostly of financial matter,
as the movie was realized under very tight budged, it inadvertently employed
hardly any special effects, nevertheless, it was still loved by anyone who
watched it. After all the production was not intended to be a science-fiction
movie – but rather a mirror, a metaphor for those times.