June 2020 – Czech Film Review

The Inheritance or You Shouldn’t Say That (Dědictví aneb Kurva se neříká) – Robert Sedláček, 2014

Bolek Polivka as Bohus

**You can watch The Inheritance or You Shouldn’t Say That (Dědictví aneb Kurva se neříká) right HERE with our View on Demand partner Eyelet**

Later this year, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter will appear in Bill & Ted Face the Music, almost thirty years after their last outing as the airheaded rockers, Wild Stallyns. Reeves can seemingly do no wrong these days but the omens and the trailer don’t look good.

Alex Winter may have had a quiet couple of decades career-wise, but Reeves has become a cultural icon, the internet’s favourite celebrity nice guy, and has been kicking ass well into his fifties and making it look easy in the John Wick movies. So why does he need to give a belated victory lap as the character that helped make him a huge star? It rarely fares well.

Take a look at Dumb or Dumber To. Or rather, don’t. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels had built well-respected, award-winning careers before they put another shrimp on the barbie and reprised their roles as the childish, dim-witted Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. It worked when they were younger, but seeing two middle-aged men behave in such a way was just pathetic, and even a little bit creepy…

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Diamonds of the night (Démanty noci) — Jan Němec, 1964

Based on Arnošt Lustig’s novel Darkness Has No Shadow, Jan Němec’s first full-length feature, Diamonds of the Night, is a visceral experience that shouldn’t be missed. Right from the jump, the film hooks you with an incredible sequence that follows two young boys escaping a train heading towards a concentration camp. The whole scene is shot in one continuous take as the camera closes in to capture the desperation on their faces. By this point, it’s clear that the goal is to put the viewer in the state of mind of these characters as they struggle to survive.

Buy Diamonds of the Night from Amazon HERE

This is one of those films that focuses more on providing an immersive experience for the viewers, rather than telling a straightforward narrative. And that’s apparent in its presentation. Once the boys make their way into the woods, the film intercuts between their current situation and visions of life before the war. These memories belong to Ladislav Jánsky’s character, whose perspective is the one we follow throughout the film. The scenes are made up of simple moments that seem like distant memories compared to the situation he currently finds himself in. We see images of kids sledging down a hill while laughing, mundane details of people going about their day, and the relationship he shared with his girlfriend. Now, he just wants to survive and return to the life he once knew…

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Three Wishes for Cinderella (Tři oříšky pro Popelku) – Václav Vorlíček, 1973

Libuse Sanfrankova as Cinderella

Let’s face it – most modern film versions of fairytales suck.

The pervasive obsession with postmodern spins on these timeless tales is largely to blame, and one big green grumpy ogre has been the chief culprit over the past twenty years or so.

The trend started much earlier though, with The Princess Bride in 1987. It wasn’t a hit at the box office but built a devoted cult following and, while it pokes fun at fairytales, it felt like an affectionate tribute and still had a magic of its own.

The real groundwork for the genre’s ultimate destruction came with Robin Williams’ motormouthed genie in Aladdin five years later. The classic Disney comedy sidekick had been around for many years, but it wasn’t until his livewire performance put a jolt into the tired House of Mouse formula that the postmodern take on a classic tale really took hold. Although the film was ostensibly set in ancient Arabia, the genie was a burst of irreverent, anachronistic energy, riffing on cars, quiz shows and submarines while firing off impressions of Groucho Marx and Jack Nicholson.

Three Wishes for Cinderella Blu Ray

Buy Three Wishes for Cinderella from Amazon HERE

Then in 2001 came DreamWorks’ Shrek. Based on William Steig’s children’s book, the project had been in development for several years, with names like Nicolas Cage and Chris Farley attached as the grumpy ogre, before the part eventually fell to Mike Myers. He trotted out his favourite Scor-tesh accent and Eddie Murphy tried to out-do the irreverence as his wisecracking donkey sidekick. Indeed, it felt like a movie entirely populated by comedy sidekicks and its approach initially seemed fresh, putting a spin on a variety of fairytale characters ranging from the Gingerbread Man to Puss in Boots (who got his own movie spinoff). Shrek was a massive hit and the concept of an earnest fairytale was pretty much lost…

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In Context: Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping (Jára Cimrman ležící, spící) – Ladislav Smoljak, 1983

Zdenek Sverak as Jara Cimrman

How do you even start with a personage the size of Jára Cimrman? I feel like I’m describing Leonardo da Vinci using nothing but Morse code printed on popsicle sticks. I’d love to just talk about the film, Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping but without context, it would make no sense to you. So I’ll try to give you a sliver of a fragment of an introduction to the best playwright, philosopher, skier, and teacher – Jára Cimrman.

Jára Cimrman: Cultural Icon

This man is the closest thing to a national treasure the Czechs have, and he is still very much alive in the cultural space: his more than 15 plays are still running, he has a museum in Prague’s watchtower, Petřín, and he even has an asteroid named after him (7796 Járacimrman). His biggest peak was probably the 2005 Greatest Czech competition (which happened in reaction to the 100 Greatest Britons show in the UK and across Europe). But Cimrman didn’t make it in the end. He was unrightfully disqualified for being fictional…

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