Tonight, I accomplished an odd sort of task I had set for myself in 2011. For some reason, after Oscar season ended in March of that year I started watching all of the films that had been nominated for Oscars in 1973. Of those I hadn't seen there were something like 12. These were strange films, most of them, now mostly neglected, and it was very hard to get ahold of many of them. Most of them are now just curiosities, and watching them all was a bizarre experience of movie history. (I've been playing a similar game with myself for the year 1970, but these remaining films are proving even harder to track down.) In any case, The Pedestrian (Der Fussgänger) is an odd little movie. A kind of memory piece (these were popular in the 1970s) told from two perspectives. An old man who is responsible for having killed many many women and children in Greece during the second world war remembers his crimes. And a group of tabloid journalists working on a story that attempts to expose him. It's an intriguing film with several fascinating formal devices, including a bizarre conversation between eight or nine old women about men and violence, and a television interview that frankly discusses the ethics of the film's subject matter. Totally worth watching but now available only on VHS. For other films nominated for the year 1973 you can click on the tag.
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