Fahrradsozialismus

Or One Got Fat, a 1963 propaganda film on bicycle safety.

I’ve never been much of a fan of the horror genre apart from perhaps enjoying them as period pieces in terms of production design & nostalgia for nostalgia sake. I can honestly say, however, that it is by far one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen – and I am including Turkish Star Wars & the 1962 Live action version of Astroboy, despite the fact that I was entranced by its frighteningly mesmerising albeit macabre narration by Edward Everett Horton (not to mention a plethora of good bad puns). You are hereby forewarned.

The messages are of course all perfectly sound, most of which you would expect today from any cycling advocacy campaign or a seasoned cyclist. Its realisation, resides in an entire different dimension of believability.

What construed as friendship or even fundamental human emotions (of course they are monkeys, after all) to the makers of the film is beyond one’s imagination. Just like many a classic horror movie, the members of the gang meet their gruesome demise one-by-one (including being flattened by a steamroller & falling into an uncovered manhole, naturally accompanied by sound-effects of hilarity) through their negligence of safety issues, the rest ride on with steady resolve, seemingly unconcerned towards their destination. The only child arrives safely without harm by following road rules, sits down, and devours the lunch of his companions, hence the title. Upon discovery that this child is in fact human, one probably shouldn’t be surprised at the capability of such cold-heartedness, but I don’t think social commentaries were part of the original intention of the filmmakers.

It really recalls the casualness with which pro-modern fairy-tales portray scenes of unspeakable violence, cruelty & general flagitiousness such as in Hansel & Gretel, The Little Mermaid & Little Red Riding Hood, as allegorical as they maybe, and as it is arguably in this case. Regardless of contemporary sensibilities towards such issues, the inherent experiential difference between the media to me would make the latter far more horrifying, especially as a child.

In addition to what one must be forced to interpret as humour, though undeniably morbid, again we see fear being used to punctuate the message of the film. Exactly how successful it was in enforcing the explicit message is unknown, and I can’t help but wonder just exactly how many children were traumatised & terrified out of cycling forever by this psychedelic Dantean journey through cyclic purgatory.

Just as the fearless red rider of Velosentai lie awake at night pondering exactly what bike would be represent the symbol of honour and justice on the road, lo and behold, an epiphany was upon him:

Not quite as ostentatious as the undeniably Japanese art of dekochari, but nevertheless like many aspects of Japanese culture, the difference between sincerity & irony is never too clear - to me one of the chief attractions.

Via Bakfiets en meer.

The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of cycle socialism, is, undoubtedly, the fact that it would relieve us from the sordid necessity of having to acquire new shoes not because they no longer commensurate aesthetically with one’s buttonholes, but from the utter indecorum of physical deterioration, as any dedicated ambulist can recount with considerable abhorrence.

One simply cannot overstate the vulgarity that is the predilection towards the motor car as a means of conveying oneself from one triviality to the next, leaving in its wake irreversible alterations to one’s mind & the natural environment of Man. Rapidity, like all such excesses & bombastics, should only be enjoyed in moderation & with subtlety. After all, only those who are always in a hurry should have need for speed, by being as noisely and as expensively as possible in doing so. It is a great tragedy when thw world defines worth by what a man owns, what he ought to own, what is owed to him, and not by what is beautiful.

The bicycle, on the other hand, is perfectly charming both in the gracility of its physical form and in the gracefulness of its operation. A well-dressed Adonis enraptured by riding a well-tuned bicycle is the only link between Art and Nature. Ecce Homo, Ecce Birota!

Not since our arboreal days have Man been so effortless with locomotion using what was bestowed by God alone. There’s something intrinsically Greek about the epiphany where one achieve complete harmony with the divine axial gyrations caressing gently the ground upon which one traverses, the contours assuaged with nothing but perfectly spherical, lubricious metallic orbs, so very ideal, and idolised & worshipped by sages of old.

One should either be a work of art, or ride a work of art, that love unspeakable.