Tag Archives: Czech new wave

Something Different/A Bagful of Fleas

something-different
Something Different

Format: DVD

Release date: 29 February 2016

Distributor: Second Run

Director: Věra Chytilová

Writer: Věra Chytilová

Original titles: O něčem jiném (Something Different), Pytel blech (A Bagful of Fleas)

Cast: Eva Bosáková, Věra Uzelacová

Czechoslovakia 1963/1962

81/43 minutes

This new release explores Věra Chytilová’s early 1960s documentary-inflected pre-Daisies work.

‘It’s like guarding a bagful of fleas,’ says the chaperone at the textile-factory workers’ dance. The young employees jive to a rendition of ‘O Sole Mio’ with new Czech lyrics, which have special poignancy for Jana, who is about to lose her boyfriend to the army. She’s been creating trouble, both on the job and in the girls’ dormitory where she lives, boarding-school style. No smoking, no flirting, no sneaking out to the cinema, and up for work at 4:30 am – those are the rules. A subjective camera represents the point of view of Eva, a new recruit, making the audience literally share her newcomer’s perspective. We’re in her shoes as she first enters her new living quarters, where the girls stare, tease, and talk directly to the camera in close-up. We listen in on Eva’s private opinions about everything that she observes: ‘Go on, eat something, you’re thin as a rake,’ she thinks, as the dorm’s chubbiest member snacks away. ‘Strange, women dancing together,’ remarks her inner voice, as she watches her co-workers practising for the next party.

Fans of Věra Chytilová’s famously experimental and anarchic Daisies (1966) are in for a treat with another release of her work on DVD by Second Run. Last year they released two later films, Fruit of Paradise (1970) and Traps (1998), which took Daisies’ fantasy and feminism even further. This release of Something Different (1963) and A Bagful of Fleas (1962) takes us back to the beginning of Chytilová’s career.

Something Different presents a parallel montage of the lives of two women: stay-at-home mum V?ra and professional gymnast Eva Bosáková. The housewife is played by Chytilová’s friend Věra Uzelacová, with her actual son, Milda, as her naughty little boy. The athlete is shown taking part in a real-life international championship, but there are also obviously scripted sections of her story, just like the fictional narrative of Věra and her family. Their lives only intersect briefly at the very beginning of the film, in a transition from the opening sequence of Eva competing, to the living room of Věra’s house where Milda is watching the competition on TV. Chytilová’s talent for rhythmic editing, geometric framing and inventive perspective is already in evidence. Viewers might expect a film of contrasts between the mother in her private sphere and the gymnast in the public eye, but the women share a similar degree of boredom and frustration, and both briefly resist the confines of routine, expectation and isolation.

Compared with Daisies, these early films show more of the influence of documentary realism. The young factory workers in A Bagful of Fleas are non-professional actors improvising their lines; real foremen and officials preside over the Works Committee meeting where Jana is pulled up for bad behaviour. Even so, a gulf in attitude separates this from other films in the Czech New Wave, such as Milos Forman’s A Blonde in Love (1965); there’s also less of Jiří Menzel’s whimsical good humour, and more of Daisies’ knowing cynicism. Both A Bagful of Fleas and Something Different emphasise the oppressive narrowness of their characters’ situation.

Alison Frank

Dragon’s Return

Dragons Return

Format: DVD

Release date: 24 August 2015

Distributor: Second Run

Director: Eduard Grečner

Writer: Eduard Grečner

Cast: Radovan Lukavský, Gustáv Valach, Emília Vášáryová

Original title: Drak sa vracia

Czechoslovakia 1967

81 mins

When Martin Lepiš (Radovan Lukavský) comes home after a prolonged absence, his fellow villagers aren’t exactly pleased to see him. ‘Dragon’s back.’, ‘Dark days are coming.’, they mutter in terror. Martin’s only apparent connection with dragons is the kiln he uses to fire his whimsical pottery. It’s unclear why the villagers should fear this aging, quiet and artistic man with an eye-patch.

When their cattle are stranded by a forest fire, the villagers blame ‘Dragon’ for bringing them bad luck. He offers to lead the cattle to safety in exchange for being allowed to live once more in his potter’s cottage in the village. But someone must go with him, and the villagers appoint Šimon (Gustáv Valach), the man who married Dragon’s former lover, Eva (Emília Vášáryová), and the one who has most to lose from Dragon’s return.

Eduard Grečner was part of the first cohort of Czechoslovak New Wave directors who studied at the Prague Film School, FAMU. He assisted fellow Slovak director Štefan Uher on his 1962 film The Sun in a Net, generally considered the first film of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Like Uher, Grečner incorporated avant-garde visual and storytelling techniques into his films, ushering Czechoslovakian cinema into the modernist era.

Unfortunately, a combination of events meant that international audiences were deprived of the chance to see 1967’s Dragon’s Return: the Pesaro Film Festival, where it was meant to be screened, was disrupted by the ‘May 68 protests, and that same year Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Warsaw Pact armies. Grečner’s opposition to the Soviet occupation meant that he was subsequently blacklisted.

Now, Second Run have released a miraculously clear transfer of a 50-year-old classic that looks as though it were filmed yesterday. In his engaging and erudite liner notes (which include an interview with the director), Jonathan Owen points out that Grečner was strongly influenced by Bergman and Renais. This film reminded me in particular of The Seventh Seal, with its fateful atmosphere, striking visual composition, and timeless bond with the cycles of nature and local superstition.

Grečner establishes an artistic signature all his own with his 360-degree pans across the mountains, and around Dragon and Eva. The couple is shown in frequent, powerful flashbacks inspired, as the director himself explains, by Surrealism’s insistence on the supremacy of desire. The film’s particular style is also indebted to composer Ilja Zeljenka’s score, which establishes an atmosphere of threat and hysteria early on through its orchestration of human voices, and later develops a sophisticated aural motif from the cows’ bells and their terrified lowing.

In a 20-minute introduction, Peter Hames makes the persuasive suggestion that, in this highly symbolic film, the director is Dragon: an artistic outsider who is hated and attacked for being different. In the films of the later Czechoslovak New Wave, it is hard not to perceive premonitions that the nation’s brief period of grace from the iron fist of political and creative oppression was about to end.

Alison Frank

Fruit of Paradise

Fruit of Paradise 1
Fruit of Paradise

Format: DVD

Release date: 13 April 2015

Distributor: Second Run

Director: Věra Chytilová

Writers: Věra Chytilová, Ester Krumbachová

Cast: Jitka Novákova, Karel Novak, Jan Schmid

Original title: Ovoce stromu rajských jíme

Czech Republic 1969

99 mins

Released in 1969, shortly after the Soviet invasion that crushed the Prague Spring, Fruit of Paradise is inevitably more sombre than Daisies, director Věra Chytilová’s most famous film, made in 1966 at the height of the Czech New Wave. Both Daisies and Fruit of Paradise centre on women who refuse to follow the rules. Yet in Daisies, two teenage girls giggle their way through their lives, refusing to take anything seriously, while Fruit of Paradise, with its biblical basis, addresses matters of life and death and is shot through with genuine threat.

The film opens with a lyrical rendition of the story of Adam and Eve. Composer Zdeněk Liška’s haunting, mysterious score combines with a mesmerising sequence of images, the slowly moving figures of Adam and Eve overlaid with close-ups of flowers and leaves. The shifting colours, absence of dialogue and emphasis on bodies in movement evoke early cinema’s hand-tinted shorts, such as Lumière’s Serpentine Dance (1896). The concern with visual innovation and pictorial composition, shared by Chytilová and cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, is obvious, and links the film with Daisies, which Kučera also photographed. But the playful spirit of the earlier film has been supplanted, here, by a more sober and pensive form of experimentation.

After the opening sequence, the film takes an allegorical approach to the Adam and Eve theme. Key elements are still clearly identifiable: a central couple featuring a woman named Eva, an apple tree in a pastoral landscape, and a dangerous figure of temptation, here represented by Robert, a redhead in a maroon suit. Chytilová’s most obvious adjustment to the story is in the nature of the three protagonists, and the dynamics of their relationship. Josef, Eva’s husband, is a philanderer, so she is arguably within her rights to pursue a lover of her own, even if she seems ill-advised in her choice of the satanic Robert.

Eva observes, with delight, how playfully Robert interacts with other women. Having thus subjected him to the female gaze, she continues her investigation of him, making off with the key to his room. There, she finds a rubber stamp of the (appropriately demonic) number 6, which she imprints on her thigh, a scene reminiscent of Jiří Menzel’s Closely Observed Trains (1966), where signalman Hubička stamps the secretary’s bottom. Josef Somr, who played Hubička, actually does the voice-over for Josef in Fruit of Paradise, while the voice of Robert is provided by Jan Klusák, who played the similarly sinister figures of the butterfly collector in Daisies and the bullying host in The Party and the Guests.

This new Second Run DVD release also includes Chytilová’s stylish graduation film, Ceiling, a cinéma vérité-style short about the life of a young model. It also features thorough liner notes by Czech New Wave expert Peter Hames, who provides all sorts of useful and intriguing insights into both films, their background and context.

Alison Frank

Traps

Traps 1
Traps

Format: DVD

Release date: 23 March 2015

Distributor: Second Run

Director: Věra Chytilová

Writers: Věra Chytilová, Eva Kacírková, Michal Laznovsky

Cast: Zuzana Stivínová, Miroslav Donutíl, Tomás Hanák

Original title: Pasti, pasti, pastičky

Czech Republic 1998

116 mins

Věra Chytilová was one of the Czech New Wave’s most innovative directors, best known for Daisies (1966), where the antics of two mischievous teenage girls are matched by the director’s own cheeky stylistic experimentation. Traps (1988) comes much later in Chytilová’s career, and is among her more conventional films. Where her earlier work tended to elude traditional cause-and-effect narrative in favour of a liberated, episodic structure, Traps pursues its dark satire in an inexorable succession of attacks and counter-attacks.

In her essay to accompany this new Second Run DVD release of Traps, Carmen Gray situates the film among a ‘new proliferation of mass-appeal comedies’, which Traps is clearly ‘parodying’. Certainly, with its graphic opening images of pig castration, searing attack on contemporary trends and attitudes, and broad spectrum of female characters, Traps sets itself apart from mainstream comedy’s tendency to stereotype.

The story revolves around Lenka, a country vet, who is raped by ad executive Petr and environment minister Donhal after they offer her roadside assistance. Knowing that their crime will go unpunished by the judicial system, Lenka uses her professional skills to make sure the two men don’t go on to attack other women.

Although the rape itself is more or less elided through whip-pans across the treetops of the forest where it takes place, Chytilová deftly shifts the focus by dwelling on the long struggle that precedes the attack and the debilitating nightmares and flashbacks Lenka suffers from afterwards. The large number of films that graphically depict rape wade into a dubious territory of sly titillation or sadistic humiliation. Chytilová conveys sexual assault’s true impact on women by taking a broader perspective.

Petr and Donhal’s light-hearted attitude towards rape, enjoying the struggle of one woman against two men, turns the episode into an example of why women may live their lives feeling constantly under threat. Chytilová also offers a succinct glimpse into the consequences of rape, which extend far beyond the terrifying and violent event itself, affecting Lenka’s professional and personal life. She can no longer stand the sight of breeding animals on the farms where she works, and her relationship with her boyfriend is destroyed, as she is initially afraid to tell him, then disgusted when he finds out and ‘forgives’ her for being raped.

Lenka’s cheerful professional competence prior to the attack is reminiscent of Anna’s in Chytilová’s earlier The Apple Game: the midwife, though comically clumsy at times, shines with confidence whether delivering a baby at the hospital or a calf at the farm. Although it is this competence that allows Lenka to punish her attackers, the action does not empower her. When her boyfriend learns what she has done, he says ‘I’ve never seen you like this’. ‘Maybe it’s not me anymore,’ she replies. Rather than suggesting, in the simplistic way of Hollywood, that taking the law into your own hands brings catharsis, Chytilová demonstrates that happy endings can’t truly exist in an unjust and hypocritical society.

Alison Frank

A Blonde in Love

A Blonde in Love
A Blonde in Love

Format: DVD

Part of The Czechoslovak New Wave Collection Vollume II DVD box-set

Release date: 7 December 2015

Distributor: Second Run

Director:Miloš Forman

Writers: Miloš Forman, Jaroslav Papousěk, Ivan Passer, Ví¡clav Sasek

Original title: Lí¡sky jedné plavovlí¡sky

Cast: Hana Brejchoví¡, Vladimí­r Pucholt, Vladimí­r Mensí­k, Ivan Kheil

Czechoslovakia 1965

81 mins

Miloš Forman’s bittersweet comedy drama is a gem of the Czech New Wave.

A Blonde in Love (Lí¡sky jedné plavovlí¡sky, 1966) is a gem of the Czech New Wave. As Czechoslovakia’s communist censors relaxed their hold on culture in the 1960s, directors still had the benefit of 100% state funding for their films, but with greater freedom of expression. Some directors took advantage of this freedom by making stylised, fanciful films that would previously have been condemned as avant-garde. For other directors, the most exciting part of the liberalisation was the permission to make films about everyday life, warts and all, rather than idealised propaganda pieces. Within the Czech New Wave, a distinctive strand of filmmaking emerged: fiction films that were strongly influenced by documentary, but which also highlighted the absurd in everyday situations. As Miloš Forman was the most prominent representative of this approach, it became known as ‘The Forman School’. Based on a true story, and featuring many non-professional actors even in leading roles, A Blonde in Love typifies the Forman School’s successful combination of fiction, documentary and comedy. Its candid portrayal of young love led to problems with the censors in Australia and Argentina. But this same candidness and humour also made the film immensely popular both domestically and internationally: it is among the most successful films ever made in the former Czechoslovakia, and was only the second Czech film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

The blonde in question is Andula, a young woman who lives and works at a shoe factory a remote little village where there are 16 women for every man. The film follows this endearing character as she naívely navigates sparse romantic terrain. The factory manager, worried about his employees’ future, organises a dance, and convinces the army to send some men. To the girls’ disappointment, it is middle-aged reservists who arrive to socialise with them. Andula’s eye turns to the band’s young pianist from Prague, and her bittersweet love story begins.

Showcasing the black humour for which Eastern Europe is rightly famed, it is the film’s most poignant situations that have the most comic potential. When Andula visits the pianist in Prague, his scolding mother won’t let them sleep together. He is forced to squeeze into his parents’ bed, where he has an endless, and endlessly comic, argument with them about who has the most duvet, who should sleep on the join in the middle of the bed, and above all, about the unwanted visitor. Unfortunately, Andula can hear their argument clearly, and is crying alone outside the door.

Second Run’s DVD comes with informative liner notes written by Michael Brooke, commenting on the film’s themes, political significance, international reception and influence. There is one significant gap in this account, though: it fails to explain the context and nature of the Czech New Wave. It is also disappointing that the DVD itself contains no special features. An interview with Miloš Forman would have offered welcome insights into life and filmmaking under communism.

This review refers to the original DVD release of the film by Second Run in 2011. The special features are the same as included on the new box-set edition. For a full list of extra contents, visit the Second Run website.

Alison Frank

Daisies

Daisies
Daisies

Format: DVD

Release date: 1 June 2009

Distributor: Second Run

Director: Věra Chytilová

Writer: Věra Chytilová

Original title: Sedmikrí¡sky

Cast: Ivana Karbanová, Jitka Cerhová

Czechoslovakia 1966

74 minutes

Two young women in their bathing suits sit listlessly by a pool, overcome by the alienation and apathy frequently observed in the youth of 60s European cinema. They move in jerky doll fashion, each gesture accompanied by creaking noises that emphasise the metaphor. After a brief philosophical exchange on the state of things, they conclude that, as the world has become bad and corrupt, they shall be bad too. What follows is a string of joyous anarchic pranks in which Marie I and Marie II eat, drink, smoke, mock, play with and destroy everything they can lay their hands on.

Daisies will be shown as part of the season Defiance and Compassion: The Films of Věra Chytilová at BFI Southbank in March 2015. For full programme details and to book tickets, visit the BFI website.

Given the central characters’ rebellious streak and their mischievous manipulation of men, the film has often been seen as feminist. The two Maries certainly do not conform to traditional expectations of femininity: they gleefully stuff their faces, fool around and fall over disgracefully or uninhibitedly take their clothes off. They display a total lack of interest in romance, ignoring a lover’s maudlin, clichéd pleas, all of which feels like a refreshingly truthful and satisfying representation of women. But their insubordination is not just an act of female resistance against patriarchal society: Věra Chytilová’s Daisies (1966) is more Dada than women’s lib, and the two Maries are above all non-conformist individuals, outsiders to the grinding machinery of society. Echoing Tristan Tzara et al responding to the madness of the First World War by retreating to Zürich to conduct turbulent artistic experiments, the girls’ bad behaviour is a direct response to the state of the world. This is emphasised by the stylised images of explosions that open and close the film, circumscribing the girls’ escapades within references to war. The resonance is made all the stronger by the film’s avant-garde style, the interest in visual experimentation, the sonic and graphic play with words, the non-sensical narrative and the delectable juvenile humour.

According to the accompanying booklet written by Peter Hames, the moral message of the film, as well as Chytilová’s own position in relation to her protagonists, are the subjects of some debate, with various commentators arguing that the director originally intended the film to be a critique of the girls’ behaviour. After the final scene of Dionysiac excess during which they ravage a richly laid out banquet hall, the two Maries, under threat of death, are forced to promise that they will now be good. But as they go about clearing the mess they’ve made, they do so in a manner that is entirely subversive, scraping cake off the floor before piling the revolting mush back onto dishes, or arranging fragments of broken plates and glasses in a mockery of the elegant table they ruined. In spite of their repeated assertions that they are ‘good’ and will work hard, order is not restored, and under the pretence of compliance the girls are still agents of chaos and destruction.

This final scene has been read in many different ways, with some critics seeing in it the failure of the girls’ revolt, and others a deserved punishment for their behaviour. Whatever Chytilová’s original intentions may have been, it is undeniable that the film delights in the characters’ total freedom; their anarchic spirit proves irresistibly infectious, and the same playfulness and irreverence infuse the direction. The corruption of the world is what liberates the girls from the social norm, and this liberation from convention, whether filmic or social, unleashes an enormous amount of energy, both creative and destructive. This, more crucially than anything else in the film, is profoundly Dada. The voracious embrace of absolute freedom, and of the chaos that inevitably comes with it, is what makes Daisies so thoroughly energising and joyously inspiring.

Virginie Sélavy