The Exile of Anna Prucnal

Anna Prucnal plays secondary heroine Anna Planeta in - you guessed it - Dusan Makavejev's 1974 cinematic masterpiece, Sweet Movie.  

Looking lovely as a young lass, pre-Sweet Movie.  She was a fairly prominent Polish stage and cinema actress and had a decent career as a singer.
At some point in the late 1960s/early 1970's, she found herself playing a scandalous role in one of the most talked about-not-talked about films to ever be made - Sweet Movie, near and dear to the hearts and minds of BC/HF.
Curiously enough, her character in the film would somewhat foreshadow what she would experience upon its release.

Her role is that of Anna Planeta, free-thinking, Marx-loving captain of the ship Survival, welcome nowhere on land.  She encounters the highly sexualized ex-sailor Potemkin, who she invites on board her candy-laiden vessel upon which they develop a very passionate, ultimately fatal relationship.

Oh yeah! That is totally sugar that they are covered in. Fascinating. Delicious.

The bed of sugar returns...this time more sinister. Too many sweets will rot your teeth, Potemkin.

This is possibly one of the most alarming stills from the film. Looks innocent enough, or does it? One of the main themes in Sweet Movie is sexuality, and often this sexuality is confusing or frightening to the recipient. Miss World Virginity, Carol Laure, has a very unpleasant honeymoon experience which leads to another odd sexual encounter with a certain Mr. Muscle.

This blog, however, is not about Carol Laure. It is about Anna Prucnal. In the questionable photo, she is seducing a small group of young (did I mention young!?) boys. On her ship of death, there is plenty of candy and sugary sweets to spare. Are the sweets there to interest the children or for Anna Planeta's pleasure?

 Either way, little boys like candy. Little boys also like semi-nude women, and Anna's got that covered as well.

Before you leave in utter disgust, take a moment to think. Cohorts have expressed to me that they felt most sexual as a child. Freud certainly got into that shit. We are all sexual as youngsters, though not necessarily involving others. Then we grow older, and we are taught to be embarassed. We might not like the idea of childhood sexuality, but it exists. That's the beauty of Sweet Movie. It shows the ugly truth, from the Katyn Forest Massacre (which had not been formally acknowledged at the time of the films release) to absurd displays of American consumerism.

Well, the Polish government didn't see things that way...

The government thought the film was "pornographic" even though it is only implied that Anna has sex with with the children, as opposed to graphic images of child nudity or anything of the like. The children appeared fully clothed, looking curiously at Anna. The rest is in your filthy imagination after Anna pulls the curtain. She does have sex with a grown man, but come on! It's 1974, people! The government of Poland also saw the film as "anticommunist" because it is heavy with political allegory.

So, what's a country like Poland to do?

Ban Anna from using her Polish passport, of course! Can't go home. Poland gave her the finger. That's like getting kicked out of New Jersey. Humiliating, but worse than that was that due to this political bullshit, Anna could not be at her dying mother's side. Like her character, Anna Planeta, she was unwelcome and forced to wander a world filled with death. France didn't seem to mind Miss Prucnal, and she continued to have a career there and in several surrounding countries, but spastic fans like BC/HF will mourn the ignorance of her home country as Anna mourns the loss of her mother.