plumbing into different worlds
by
Douglas Messerli
Peter
Weir (writer and director) The Plumber /
1979, USA 1981
Not
a lot happens of serious consequence in Peter Weir’s 1979 film, The Plumber, except that the small
bathroom inside the bedroom of the Cowper’s apartment is utterly destroyed by
the building plumber. He not only destroys their previously well-working bathroom,
but quickly warns the graduate-student anthropologist, Jill Cowper (Judy
Morris) of far greater dangers, including a great rush of fetid waters waiting
to cascade into their safe haven just over their heads.
Although Jill and her scientific research
husband, Brian (Robert Coleby) seem, at first, perfectly attune as an
academic-oriented pair, it quickly becomes apparent—particularly when
the presumptuous
and socially-self-conscious plumber, Max (Ivar Kants)—that something ominous
and possibly even evil has just entered their lives. Certainly, Jill perceives
it, as the intruder not only demands entry into their house, but casually and
sometimes not so casually begins to intrude upon her territory. While her
husband is off to his lab in an attempt to woo a trio of WHO (World Health
Organization) officials who may, if he can convince them, offer him a job for
several years in Geneva, Jill is left at home—trying to finish her Master’s
Thesis—to deal with the sleazy, lying and, yet, somewhat charming Max, a figure
who, clearly, is not only terribly conscious of class differences, but is
resentful for the way he, a self-proclaimed would be rock-star, has been
treated throughout his life. We later hear one of his songs, a imitative
version of music by Bob Dylan and others of his ilk.
It’s utterly preposterous how truly dense were
reviewers such as Janet Maslin of The New
York Times when this film first appeared in New York, who simply did not
perceive how effectively Weir had set up the entire series of Max’s feelings of
cultural abuse. Maslin argues that his major argument is that figures such as Bob
Dylan and Mick Jagger refused to sell out, creating “real” political statements
in their music. I might suggest she should see the movie again, and deal with
the real hurt expressed that Max feels for even his positions of entry, often
devoted to signs that suggest the “trade” should enter here, and the thousands
of social dismissals—with which Jill equally assaults him—given his inability to
speak proper English, as if Australian English or even American English might
be recognized as “proper” in what he calls her “posh” world.
Strangely, Weir presents her “world” as
anything but posh. Yes, she and her husband are surrounded by New Guinea totems
and artifacts, witness to their years of studying the native cultures. In fact,
her husband, in response to a sense of guilt for her own terrorization of the intruder—who
her husband is too busy to even encounter—is presented a gift of an expensive
watch. But generally, this couple seems to be living at the low end of what Max
might describe as “posh.” Their lives are just a few levels above the graduate
students they have long been. Their treasures are artifacts of love of their
past experiences, not monetary trophies.
Yet, their lives are filled with a sense
of apartness and superiority. Despite little evidence that the New Guinea tribes
have continued in their cannibalistic custom of eating the bodies of their own
dead relatives, Brian is convinced that the tradition continues, and accounts
for the tribes’ current physical debilitations by the fact that the tradition
continues, attempting to convince the WHO committee who visit him of his research,
despite everyone else’s convictions.
Jill, in her early encounters with the
New Guinea tribes, has her own story to tell. One night, as she sat in her tent
alone, a native entered, and proceeded for many hours to scream and shout,
forcing her to remain silent, attentive, and passive. When the dawn appeared,
she carefully took a bowl of goat milk beside her, raised it over her head, and
threw it into the face of her aggressor, who broke down into a nearly endless
crying fit.
Max has clearly chosen the wrong woman
to aggress against, despite Jill’s own terrorized sense of reality throughout
the film. Despite Max’s absurd attempt to destroy her and her husband’s lives
by taking over even their basic bathroom privileges, he is no match for the
society that dominates his.
At a party that Brian insists his wife
host for his WHO “friends,” Jill serves her “too hot” chutney. When one of the
guests determines he must use the unavailable bathroom, he is trapped between the
temporary constructions holding up the “supposed” reconstruction of the
plumbing, and must be saved from death by the others at the party. Brian responds
like the perfect host, serving up dose and after dose of good cognac,
ultimately making him the hero of the evening, resulting, the next day, by him
being awarded his Geneva position.
But Jill is still resolute in her attempt
to destroy their would-be intruder. The police arrive—obviously after she has
called them—and, after searching his truck, discover several of her
possessions, including a scarf and her beloved watch (which previously she has
kept out of his way, but finally has laid out for his temptation). Like the New
Guinea native who entered her tent, presumably to tell his own sad story, she
has transformed the intruder into a crying child, as Max screams out his
protests that she is a “bitch.”
The Cowpers can now move comfortably on to
their Swiss retreat, where they will presumably do further research into
cultures of which they do not completely comprehend.
Los Angeles,
March 7, 2017
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