From ce-review.org Menzel could not work in films for some time after Skřivánci na niti. It was a period when he had to decide if he would accept the rules dictated by the regime or leave his profession yet keep his “artistic freedom.” This difficult situation was also faced by other members of the Czech New Wave. Miloš Forman, Jan Němec and Ivan Passer decided to emigrate, while Věra Chytilová and Evald Schorm stayed in Czechoslovakia even though they could not work as film directors (Chytilová for seven years, Schorm for 17 years).Read More »
Quote: Some people with a strange cat arrive in a small village. The cat wears glasses, and when someone takes them off, she can colour people, according to their nature and mood. The grown-ups of the village consider the cat to be dangerous, but the kids just love her…Read More »
THE PIED PIPER (KRYSAŘ), 1986, Czechoslovakia, 53 min. Director Jiří Barta’s stop-motion animated masterpiece, based on The Pied Piper of Hamelin, is set in a dark and twisted medieval village of narrow streets and weird Gothic arches, half-CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and half-Jan van Eyck. The money-obsessed citizens, carved out of wood blocks and speaking in an onomatopoeic babble, are like George Grosz caricatures, literally spouting coins from their mouths instead of words. The rats are far more organic and sympathetic, made of real fur and whiskers, constantly tunneling and burrowing under the towering arches and cobblestone streets above. (In one of the film’s many surreal moments, a rat emerges from a gargoyle’s gaping maw.) Fans of fellow Czech animation legend Jan Švankmajer and the Brothers Quay will adore Barta’s eerie, Expressionist gem, recently restored for its first-ever U.S. Blu-ray release through Krátký Film Praha, Deaf Crocodile and Comeback Company. “Barta’s mastery of all aspects of filmmaking are evident: staging, production design, lighting, animation, editing, sound and music combine into dark worlds of repression and revolt with ironic conclusions.” – Phil Tippett (MAD GOD).Read More »
From nytimes The Fairy Tale of Honzik and Marenka employs an ingenious animation technique using cut-out figures that is typical of the creative genius of Karel Zeman, the writer and director of this 66-minute film. The sophistication of the technique, and a sprinkling of puns and twists in the story line that bring out a moral parable on the meaning of liberty, justice, and other social issues, make the fairy tale enjoyable for adults as well as children.Read More »
An astonishing array of paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, objects and materials fill room after room – but this is not a museum open to the general public. It is the home of the celebrated artist couple Jan Svankmajer and his late wife Eva, situated in the Czech Republic’s Horni Stankov Castle.Read More »
Renowned psychiatrist Pavel Josek is singled out to receive a “Memory of the Nation” medal, however, it transpires that this reputedly morally irreproachable dissident once collaborated with state security agencies, informing on a former friend of his wife, Borek, and ultimately being responsible for the latter’s forced emigration. Josek’s family and close friends try to come to terms with these new facts.
*Czech official submission to 83rd Academy Award’s Foreign Language category (2011)Read More »
Synopsis wrote: Short Cut is a comedy revealed more in the acting and witty dialogue than in the simple premise of the story itself: how the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal was born. Actually, the story is, in many ways, the writer’s conception.Read More »
Czech filmmakers have several times been galvanised by the writings of Jaroslav Havlíček. The result in most cases was a film that merged the quality of the literary template and the personality of the particular filmmaker, whether it be Barbora Hlavsová (1942) directed by Martin Frič, Prokletí domu Hajnů (The Curse of the Hajns’ House, 1988) directed by Jiří Svoboda, or Jaromil Jireš’s Helimadoe (1992). However, the most famous adaptation of a Havlíček novel is the psychological drama Petrolejové lampy (Oil Lamps). The film is based on an eponymous novel first published in 1935 as Vyprahlé touhy (Parched Desires) and released again in 1944 following revisions and a change of title. The motion picture was made in 1971 according to a screenplay from Lubor Dohnal, Václav Šašek and Juraj Herz, the last of whom also directed the film.Read More »
Quote: This major rediscovery creates a bridge between the social realism of G. W. Pabst’s The Joyless Street and the dark lyricism of F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise. The extraordinary Ita Rina (Erotikon) is the title character, a prostitute whose act of pity—keeping chaste company with a condemned man through the night before he is to be hung—returns to threaten her unexpected chance of happiness, as the bride of a young farmer from her native village.Read More »
