The Plastic People of the Universe

Summary

César De Ferrari's student documentary about the music group The Plastic People of the Universe shows above all the uncontrolled playfulness and artistic sensibility of its members. The film is a collage of various scenes from the life of the group. It captures the lively antics in nature, the manual labour in the forest, the soirée in the Jirous' apartment, the work in the recording studio and the public performance in Pelhřimov. The recordings of the group's early songs are accompanied in the soundtrack by an interview between director Ferrari and Ivan Martin Jirous. The questions concern the artistic focus of the group (the direction of beat music, the so-called psychedelic sound), the meaning of the word underground, the concept of public performances, etc. – It is the oldest surviving document from the group's history and contains the only surviving recording of the songs Gnor's Life and Fafejta Bird from 1969. The document earned only a very brief and unkind comment in the manuscript Plastic People Chronicle: "During the time before and after the festival in Pelhřimov, Ferrari (a South American FAMU student) made a film about Plastic People. We imagined the film completely differently and parted ways with the filmmakers in disagreement."

Synopsis