plumbing into different worlds
by Douglas Messerli
Peter Weir (screenwriter and
director) The Plumber / 1979, US
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.
It’s utterly amazing 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 mockingly 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 concerning even the signs he approaches upon entry to the houses in which works, often devoted to signs that suggest the “trade” should enter here, and the thousands of social dismissals—with which Jill equally provides 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. Dylan and Jager, I’d argue, are beside the point.
Strangely, Weir presents Brian’s and Jill’s “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 during
his research, despite everyone else’s convictions.
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
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2017).