Here is the thing about Christmas films – most of them suck. There are very few true classics, which is why I’m really glad that Die Hard has entered the conversation over the last couple of years. Not only is it an awesome movie, but it is also very Christmassy, once you come to accept it as a legitimate choice as a Christmas flick.
I’ve yet to feel any Christmas tingles this year, so I thought I’d check out some of the Czech festive offerings on Netflix to see if any of them would put me in the mood…
First on my list was Little Baby Jesus (Prijde letos Jezísek?), a romantic comedy from Lenka Kny. As someone leaning more towards Paganism, I’m wary of movies with the word “Jesus” in the title. It is often a sign of a wholesome Christian-themed message movie, and I avoid those like I tend to avoid S&M orgies in abandoned abattoirs. I know people are into both and that’s OK – it’s just not my cup of tea, that’s all.
Buy your copy of Little Baby Jesus from Amazon HERE
So I was about to flick past it to the next film when I saw that it stars veteran Czech actors Josef Abrhám and Libuše Šafránková. The latter was amazing in Three Wishes for Cinderella four decades earlier, perhaps the country’s most famous Christmas film. Would Little Baby Jesus be another festive classic on her resume?
Not exactly, but – I hate to say it – it does have its moments…
Right from the get-go, we know Petr “Cobra” Šťastný (Kryštof Hádek) is trouble. We open with a scrolling shot of summer cottages. It is a quiet day apart from birdsong and the distant sound of someone mowing grass. Against this peaceful backdrop, we see Cobra, strutting along with purple hair, a camo jacket and a pair of bolt cutters strapped to his back. We don’t know what his situation is yet but he’s wired, a bundle of nervous energy. He then proceeds to break into a cottage, steal all the electrical goods and make off with his loot, all under the nose of an elderly neighbour.
Cobra is one half of the Snake Brothers, two guys in their thirties trying to eke out a living in Nowheresville, CZ, in Jan Prušinovský’s impressive film follow up to Sunday League. The elder Šťastný sibling is Vojtěch (Matěj Hádek, Kryštof’s real-life big brother), known as “Viper” to his friends. He’s marginally more well-balanced, in that he is capable of getting a job and living a semi-normal existence. No matter how hard he tries to get a foothold, he is held back by his disreputable younger brother, who is always getting himself into trouble with the law.
The Snake Brothers form a trio with Tomáš (Jan Hájek), Viper’s best friend. He’s a dour, frustrated mechanic and abusive husband to the irresponsible Zůza (Lucie Žáčková), who has been hanging around on maternity pay for the past eight years while bringing up their two kids.
After Viper angrily quits his job at a factory, an old school friend, Ládík (David Máj), offers him an opportunity to become a franchisee for a German company importing cheap fashion wear. Viper sees it as a chance to better his life but doesn’t have the ready cash to make a go of it. Luckily his granny (Věra Kubánková) is happy to put her house up as collateral.
Ready for business, Viper rents a unit in a shopping centre and hires Zůza as a cashier while also trying to keep Cobra away from his customers. It turns out that Ládík is using the venture to import more than just budget brand shoes. Plus the combustible combination of Cobra, Zůza and Tomáš means that trouble is never far away…
There is an old Les Dawson joke that goes like this: I said to the chemist, “Can I have some sleeping pills for my wife?” He said, “Why?” I said, “She keeps waking up.”
That is pretty much the attitude of the main character in Tiger Theory, Radek Bajgar’s dramedy about a sixty-something who finds an unconventional way of leaving his controlling wife.
Jan Berger (Jiří Bartoška) is a veterinarian. We first meet him as performs the snip on a tomcat, much to the gratitude of its female owner. It’s a none-too-subtle metaphor for the film’s central thesis, in that most of the male characters feel emasculated by their wives. The only guy who doesn’t has a problem with his sperm and possibly gets cheated on by his free-spirited wife, implying he’s not man enough to get the job done.
The film sets out its stall early, with Berger’s wife Olga (Eliška Balzerová) delivering a lecture to a group of students about the life expectancy of men. They drink more, smoke more and eat unhealthily, all of which affects their longevity. And it is the woman’s lot to keep control of their man’s worst impulses, she asserts.
One of my favourite folk tales from back home is the Wild Man of Orford, a small coastal village not far from where I grew up. In the 12th Century, a group of local fishermen hauled their nets to discover they’d caught a strange naked man covered in greenish hair. He was taken to the nearby castle for interrogation, but after six months his torturers realised he wasn’t able to speak.
After that they let him exercise in the sea, stringing nets across the harbour so he couldn’t escape. The Wild Man easily swam under them, but each time he returned willingly to the castle. Eventually, he tired of life on the land, slipped under the nets one last time and vanished out to sea.
A similar water-dwelling character from the landlocked Czech Republic is the vodník, or hastrman, a water goblin popular in fairytales and made famous by folklorist Karel Jaromir Erben in his collection of ballads, Kytice. The creature lives in bodies of water and is capable of drowning the unwary if he’s in a bad mood, or providing bumper catches of fish for the locals if kept happy with sacrifices and offerings…
I originally wanted to open this review with a good quote about life, and there are thousands and thousands of them online, ranging from the sage advice of Gandhi to the witticisms of W.C. Fields. In fact, when you type “quotes” into Google, “about life” is its first suggestion. So that means that either – a) there are tons of people out there writing reviews about tender character studies like Beata Parkanová’s Moments or b) millions of people every day are searching for a little inspiration to help them make sense of this bewildering rollercoaster we call Life…
You can watch On the Roof (Na střeše) right HERE with our View on Demand partner Eyelet
There was a time when every pub and restaurant in Brno seemed to be competing for the title of the city’s best burger. Everyone I knew had an opinion on whose was top, and my own pick wasn’t too popular with pub-owner friends who prided themselves on their homemade patties.
A new craze put paid to all that nonsense, and we partially have the country’s burgeoning Vietnamese community to thank for that – suddenly everyone was head-over-heels for Bún bò Nam Bô and Bánh mì sandwiches.
Vietnamese immigrants began settling in Czechoslovakia during the Communist era, arriving as guest workers invited by the government. Nowadays Vietnamese people make up the Czech Republic’s third-largest ethnic minority, after Slovaks and Ukrainians.
The first Czech film I’ve seen so far that touches upon the Vietnamese-Czech experience is Jiří Mádl’s On the Roof, a comedy-drama that focuses on the growing friendship between a lonely old man and a desperate young immigrant…
Alois Švehlík plays Antonín Rypar, a cantankerous retired professor living alone in his top floor apartment in Prague. He doesn’t have much time for people, and people aren’t too keen on him either – especially when they find out he was a communist during the soviet era. His wife left him a long time ago, taking their son with her, and he hasn’t heard from them in years – he’s isolated and regretful.
One day he pops up to the roof for a smoke and finds a distraught young Vietnamese guy, Song (Duy Anh Tran) getting ready to jump. Song has escaped from the marijuana farm where he was forced to work before it was raided by the police. Now homeless and on the run, Song is about to end it all.
Antonín talks Song down and gives the hungry and frightened young man some food while treating him to his bigoted ideas. The old man is angry at the state of the world and thinks the answer to the country’s problems is to close the borders and prevent illegal immigrants from getting in, a view that will strike a topical nerve with audience members on both sides of the argument.
Despite this, Antonín begrudgingly enjoys Song’s company and offers him his spare room, in exchange for some free cleaning. He strikes upon the idea of finding Song a Czech bride so he can stay in the country legally, and the pair secretively turn their attention to the attractive young woman living across the hall…
On the Roof takes a bunch of modern social issues and lightly squeezes them into the shape of an odd-couple movie, which hits all the comedic and dramatic beats you’d expect. The pair are distrustful at first but soon start to benefit from each other – Antonín helps Song learn Czech, while Song teaches the old man how to use Facebook to woo their pretty neighbour. You see, friendship isn’t bound by age, race or language…
Then, just when I was about to write off On the Roof as an entertaining but formulaic movie, it pulled out a genuinely surprising and touching plot turn in the final act that left me grinning. I won’t give it away but if I was the type of reviewer to give star ratings, that one thing would be enough to upgrade this from a three-star movie to a four-star one.
On the Roof was originally intended as a vehicle for Jan Tříska (The Elementary School), who sadly died just before shooting began. Alois Svehlík stepped into the role of Antonín and he’s terrific. Irritable and defiant, Antonín is a man who knows his time is coming slowly to an end and isn’t happy about it all. While he’s a redoubtable character, his loneliness makes him strangely vulnerable and regret haunts his eyes. Svehlík plays him sternly without ever trying to make him seem like a loveable old gent.
Duy Anh Tran makes an interesting foil for Svehlík’s crotchety old-timer, giving an emotional, unguarded performance as Song. He’s scared and alone until his friendship with Antonín encourages him to slowly come out of his shell.
The pair work off each other well and they manage to sell the film’s unlikelier elements, especially during the scenes when they’re trying to flirt with the neighbour without letting her know who’s doing the flirting. Together, the two actors make their character’s budding bromance worth rooting for – they are so good that I just wish they were in a better movie.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about On The Roof. In fact, it’s a perfectly enjoyable evening’s entertainment. It’s a decent watch, just be prepared to feel a little undernourished afterwards.
Despite the turmoil currently on planet earth, things are looking more optimistic up in space. Only last week scientists announced that they have picked up potential signs of life on Venus and, depending on the sources, a manned mission to Mars could launch within the next 10-20 years. Ambitious initiatives like Breakthrough Starshot are looking even further afield, with a vision of sending a tiny unmanned probe to investigate exoplanets orbiting our next-door neighbour in the cosmos, Alpha Centauri.
Long-distance space travel raises many physical and mental challenges for potential crew members. How will we keep our bodies from wasting away without gravity for our muscles to fight against? How will our minds cope with the isolation and the knowledge that, for future colonists of distant planets, it may be a one-way ticket? Is there a decent curry house, and will they take visa?
Some of these questions are tackled in Jindřich Polák’s visionary sci-fi thriller, Ikarie XB-1. Based on The Magellanic Cloud by legendary science fiction author Stanisław Lem, it charts the adventures of the crew of a near-light speed ship, Ikarie XB-1, on its 28-month mission to Alpha Centauri…
How does an oppressive regime empower individuals who are willing to toe the line? It’s a question that director Jan Hřebejk and his regular screenwriter Petr Jarchovský (Cosy Dens, Divided We Fall) tackle with the efficiency of a 90s psycho thriller in The Teacher. The answers are chilling and, while the final shot may be a little glib, the film offers plenty of food for thought.
The story opens in 1983 in a classroom in Bratislava. Right away we can see that all is not well – the new teacher Ms. Drazdechová (Zuzana Mauréry) asks her students to introduce themselves. Fairly standard procedure, but she is more interested in what their parents do for a living…
You can watch Gangster Ka right HERE with our View on Demand partners Eyelet!
The first thing you’ll become aware of while watching Gangster Ka is that people talk about money. A lot. And by a lot I mean all the time – in the first half an hour, I was so bombarded by characters I’d barely met talking about large sums of cash that I considered breaking out the abacus to help keep up.
So what? You might think. Gangsters like money, don’t they?
Of course they do, but it got me thinking about how true classics of the gangster genre aren’t really about money at all. Take Goodfellas, for example. There’s plenty of cash floating around throughout the movie, and at one point some characters pull off a lucrative airport heist. Yet while our protagonist Henry Hill sure enjoys the money, it’s the life of a gangster that he’s addicted to. And, through his eyes, we are too.
The main problem with Gangster Ka is that it thinks the most interesting thing about its protagonist, Radim Kraviec (Hynek Čermák), is how much loot he’s making through his various scams. Ironically, this preoccupation with cash really cheapens an otherwise routine crime thriller.
Kraviec, based loosely on the real-life crime boss Radovan Krejčíř, is a mobster from Ostrava who heads a gang of Albanian criminals. Deciding the city is too small for him, he sets his sights on Prague and wastes no time hustling his way into some big scores, such as taking over Čepro, a company that owns the whole country’s fuel supplies. Along the way, he double-crosses the capital’s established kingpins, Milota (Miroslav Etzler) and Sivák (Alexej Pyško), and gains a glamourous wife, Sandra (Vlastina Svátková). His next goal is muscling into politics, with a view to getting the future Prime Minister in his pocket.
Things quickly go south when an associate informs on his plan to make his 3 billion Čepro tax bill disappear, and Kraviec finds himself doing porridge while his lawyer and his loyal lieutenant Dardan (Predrag Bjelac) busy themselves bribing judges to ensure his quick release. Meanwhile, Milota and Sivák realize it’s the perfect time to seek revenge…
As many of you already know, 2020 has been the year of a number of misfortunes that have affected all of us. One of which was the passing of Ivan Passer, a prominent figure that helped establish the Czech New Wave movement. He worked as an assistant director for some of Miloš Forman’s earlier films like Black Peter and Loves of a Blonde, a film he also co-wrote along with The Firemen’s Ball. Before he and Forman moved to the United States, Passer managed to direct his first full-length feature in his homeland of Czechoslovakia, titled Intimate Lighting, which is widely considered to be his masterpiece.
The story centres around Bambas (Karel Blažek), a music teacher who invites his old friend Petr (Zdeněk Bezušek) to play as the soloist for an upcoming concert. Petr arrives at Bambas’ house accompanied by his young girlfriend, Stepa (Věra Křesadlová), where he meets Bamba’s wife, kids, and parents — who all live under the same roof. Much like Black Peter, the film focuses on individual moments in the lives of these characters as they go about their days. This might seem like there isn’t a lot going on, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. These moments actually give us insight into the lives of these characters and paint an earnest and realistic picture of domestic life…
Czech Film Review 