Czech film review – Czech Film Review

Forgotten Light (Zapomenuté světlo) – Vladimír Michálek, 1996

Father Holy and his sculptor friend carrying a religious statue in Forgotten Light

Father Holý (Bolek Polívka) is a modern village priest with a common touch, able to entertain his dwindling flock by framing his sermons as dreams he once had. In one of them, he relates the novel idea of walking into an abandoned church and finding God praying to humankind, desperate for proof of our continued existence.

This tale is a key moment in Forgotten Light, for while the film is ostensibly about a Catholic priest facing a crisis of faith at the butt end of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, it is ultimately more concerned with people’s ability to endure and maintain hope in Godless times.

Holý is a Regular Joe sort of priest, just as adept at fixing a motor as he is delivering Mass, and able to match the denizens of the village boozer shot for shot. His backstory suggests that he joined the priesthood for an easier life rather than a burning sense of piety, and he clearly still has a discreet eye for the ladies. He now has quite a lot of time on his hands – his parish once had three churches, but two have been shuttered by the state and converted into storage facilities. His last remaining place of worship is in a severe state of neglect, but he keeps on keeping on through a sense of duty to his small community.

Bolek Polívka as doubting priest Father Holy in Forgotten Light

When the church springs a disastrous leak, Father Holý seeks funds to mend the roof. The atheistic Party is quite happy to let religion burn itself out through lack of funds and state support, however, and the seedy purse-keepers insinuate that he could get himself in a lot of trouble if he keeps pushing.

Holý’s a resourceful guy and hatches a risky scheme to raise the money himself, enlisting local sculptor Klima (Jiří Pecha) to carve a duplicate statue of St. Henry so he can flog the original to a wealthy foreign collector of religious artwork. Meanwhile, the priest also becomes involved in the plight of Marjánka (Veronika Žilková), a terminally ill woman he has long held a candle for.

Coach to Vienna (Kočár do Vídně) – Karel Kachyňa, 1966

A grieving widow riding next to a German soldier on a horse-drawn cart in Coach to Vienna

We’re all familiar with the adage that war makes monsters out of men, and we’ve had numerous gruelling cinematic epics like Apocalypse Now and Come and See to hammer that point home. Before both those towering achievements, however, Czechoslovak New Wave director Karel Kachyňa succinctly showed that women are not exempt in his gripping drama Coach to Vienna.

Filmed during a period when the leading lights of the New Wave were largely focusing their talents on critiquing the Communist regime, Kachyňa’s film touches upon a shameful aspect of Czech history that came before. Much like František Vláčil’s sombre masterpiece Adelheid (1970), we’re dropped into the chaos and violence that accompanied the liberation of Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II, and the film nods toward the expulsion, mistreatment, and execution of ethnic Germans in the immediate aftermath.

An opening title card sets up the story: Retreating German forces have executed a farmer for a petty offence, and his widow, Krista (Iva Janžurová), is forced at gunpoint to transport two deserting soldiers by horse and cart to safety across the border in Austria. Her passengers are mortally wounded Günther (Luděk Munzar) and his callow young comrade Hans (Jaromír Hanzlík). Taking the rutted tracks through misty forests haunted by Czech partisans, it is a slow ride to sanctuary – and Krista has only revenge on her mind…

Four Murders Are Enough, Darling (Čtyři vraždy stačí, drahoušku) – Oldřich Lipský, 1971

Lubomir Lipsky's hapless Georg Camel gazes at his love interest Sabrina, covered in soap suds, in Four Murders Are Enough, Darling

After parodying old-fashioned Hollywood cowboy movies in Lemonade Joe, the Czech Mel Brooks returned to affectionately lampooning American genres with Four Murders Are Enough, Darling. This time, classic crime flicks and pulp fiction are the targets, and Oldřich Lipský apparently never encountered a gag that he didn’t deem unworthy for inclusion in his movies. I say that in the best possible sense – here, the sheer deluge of broad jokes, irreverent wordplay, comic misunderstandings, and slapstick humour has a cumulative effect, rolled into a madcap farce with the purest intention: To make the audience laugh as often as possible.

Whether all the hilarity fully translates if you don’t speak Czech is another matter, but you’ll get the general vibe. The movie starts fast and sets the tone with a jaunty title sequence with evocatively dynamic comic book art by Kája Saudek. Then we’re on a night train where Dr. James Porter (Viktor Maurer), is nervously transporting a million-dollar cheque from Michago to San Fernando. Unfortunately for them, rival gangs from each city are also onboard with murderous designs on the loot.

Segue to Springtown, where Lipský’s brother Lubomír (a regular actor in the director’s films) plays George Camel, a straight-laced school teacher with lofty literary ideals who doesn’t get much respect from his class – the kids would rather read comic books than Macbeth. He lives a solitary bachelor’s existence in a boarding house where he plays tuba and constantly gets nagged by his landlady, and tries to sell his highfalutin poetry to the local tabloid.

Lubomir Lipsky's George Camel in trouble with his nagging landlady again in Four Murders Are Enough, Darling

This is where he catches the eye of bored reporter Sabrina (Jiřina Bohdalová), who decides to woo George to make her roguish illustrator boyfriend jealous. George is excitedly getting ready for his hot date with her when the recently deceased Dr. Porter appears on his doorstep. Rather than call the police, however, George hastily stashes the stiff before Sabrina arrives.

Things escalate quickly as both gangs descend on the boarding house and take rooms, bumping each other off as they try to shake down George for the missing cheque. Already suspected of one murder by the bumbling cops, George arouses further suspicion when another dead body falls into his arms every time he opens a door. Initially setting out to clear his name by trying to find out who poisoned Dr. Porter, George grows to enjoy the notoriety as a feared killer and the increasingly amorous advances of Sabrina…

Prefab Story (Panelstory aneb Jak se rodí sídliště) – Věra Chytilová, 1979

Residents struggle through the rubble in Prefab Story

When I first visited Prague at the tail end of the ’90s, I was captivated by the city to the extent that it dominated my every waking thought. Like for millions of tourists each year, it was the historic centre’s visual splendour that first set my heart racing, but it wasn’t long before I got to know the less postcard-friendly side as well.

Attending a teaching course in the freezing winter of early 2002, the school provided cheap digs in a Communist-era Panelák out in the Barrandov district – namely, a block of flats constructed from panels of prefabricated concrete. In truth, it didn’t look all that different from similar eyesores in Britain, but it was still a striking contrast to the “Golden City” image of Prague. Just as the towers, domes, and spires of the centrum appeared etched in crystal thanks to the crisp, cold January air, the stark right angles and brute bulk of the housing project were brought into sharp focus in the snow and ice.

There was heavy construction going on at the time, which meant a lot of rubble and heaps of earth for the locals to pick their way through as they went about their daily business. One night, my flatmate was staggering back from the pub when he fell into an open trench and lay unconscious as the falling snow began covering him up. Luckily, a passing group of teenagers spotted him, fished him out, and took him back to the pub for a few reviving rounds of beer and shots.

I was reminded of this incident continually while watching Prefab Story, Věra Chytilová’s tragicomic day-in-the-life of the vast Jižní Město housing estate in Prague. The narrative, such as it is, follows an elderly man who arrives from the countryside to live with his daughter in one of the concrete monstrosities, but neither the taxi driver nor the harried locals can pinpoint the correct tower block…

Intimate Lighting (Intimní osvetlení)- Ivan Passer, 1965

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.

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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…

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All My Good Countrymen (Všichni dobří rodáci) – Vojtěch Jasný, 1968

All My Good Countrymen cinematography

When people find out that I write about Czech movies, one of the questions they sometimes ask is: why are so many Czech films about the Communist era?

The example I always use is this: I’m from England, and such a large part of our national identity is defined by World War II, which lasted six years. Three iconic events from the conflict – Dunkirk, the Blitz, and the Battle of Britain – are still touchstones in our collective conscience and influence how we think of ourselves as a people. Even seventy-odd years later, nostalgia for the war played a part in the campaign to leave the European Union.

And, of course, we’re still making successful movies about it.

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Czechoslovakia, by comparison, spent over forty years in the clutches of a Communist regime, only to regain independence relatively recently. It’s little wonder that the period still exerts such a powerful hold on the Czech national psyche and is ingrained so deeply in the country’s culture. Not only that, but forty years is a long time, so even films that aren’t directly about it still have life under communism very present as background scenery. We can probably expect Czech cinema to go on exploring those decades of subjugation for many years to come…

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Wild Flowers (Kytice) – F.A. Brabec, 2000

Vodnik Dan Barta Kytice 2000

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Like a struggling Hogwarts student about to flunk their final exam, F.A Brabec fails to conjure the requisite magic to transform Wild Flowers into something completely worth watching. Flashy visuals and a strong cast can’t disguise the fact that this is an extremely patchy anthology based on the ballads of Czech folklorist, Karel Jaromir Erben…

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Barefoot (Po strništi bos) – Jan Svěrák, 2017

Barefoot 2017 Sverak

Prequels are, by and large, one of the most pointless things in cinema. By their very nature they lack much dramatic thrust, as we already know where the story will end up. Over the past few decades, prequels have also become synonymous with major studios cashing in on profitable intellectual properties, often ruining the mystique of the original film or films. The very word “prequel” is capable of setting a certain type of Star Wars fan into a fit of rage…

In a very modest field, Barefoot (Po strništi bos) stands out as one of the better prequels available for your delectation. At first it seems like a slender prospect, arriving a full 26 years after Zdeněk and Jan Svěrák’s Oscar-nominated crowdpleaser, The Elementary School (Obecná škola). Delightful though that movie was, it favoured nostalgic, anecdotal comedy and doesn’t seem like the obvious choice for prequel treatment.

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However, if you ever wondered what the kid in The Elementary School got up to during the death throes of World War II – that is, literally a year or two before the events of the original movie – then Barefoot will answer all your burning questions…

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The Ear (Ucho) — Karel Kachyňa, 1970/1989

Like many films that were considered problematic by the communist regime in Czechoslovakia at their time of release, Karel Kachyňa’s The Ear was banned until 1989. Unlike the surreal elements found in Case for a Rookie Hangman, this film takes a more grounded approach to explore the fears and anxieties experienced by the country’s inhabitants. The film centres around a married couple trying to get through a night of desperation after they suspect their home might be under surveillance by the government.

The film begins with the couple coming home from an evening at an official dinner party. The husband, Ludvík (Radoslav Brzobohatý), is a reserved government official, and his wife, Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová), is an outspoken alcoholic. From their first interactions, we can already get a general idea of their relationship. You get the sense that they’ve been at odds for a while now, seeing as how they constantly bicker and throw verbal jabs at each other every chance they get.

The Ear Blu Ray

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Once they arrive at the entrance, they notice that they’ve misplaced the keys to the gate and find other means of getting inside, only to realize that the doors had been open and there’s been a power outage. Ludvík also notices some strange men lurking around the garden and a car parked on the other side of the street. This causes him to become more paranoid at the thought that he might be targeted by the government…

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A Case for a Rookie Hangman (Případ pro začínajícího kata) – Pavel Juráček, 1970

Starting off as a screenwriter for some of the most notable films in the Czech New Wave, Pavel Jurácek (Daisies) eventually transitioned into the role of director and went on to contribute to the movement by directing his own films. His last film, Case for a Rookie Hangman, was a surreal experience, to say the least.

From the start of the film, it’s no secret that Jurácek was inspired by the works of Jonathan Swift, specifically Gulliver’s Travels. He even apologizes beforehand in the film’s opening credits: “If Swift should turn in his grave on account of this film, I beg his compatriots for forgiveness.” This interpretation of the novel finds Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) in a strange place with bizarre customs that satirize life in Czechoslovakia under the Communist regime.

Case for a Rookie Hangman Blu Ray

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Jurácek also channels the works of Franz Kafka and Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which is evident in the surreal nature of the film. For instance, at the beginning of the film, Mr Gulliver loses control of his car and ends up running over a hare dressed in tiny clothes, and even finds that it had a watch in its pocket. After this bizarre incident, he finds a house that resembles the one from his childhood. But once he’s inside, he’s bombarded with memories of his youth: a girl he once loved who drowned, an old friend who also died, a woman who had a part in his sexual awakening, and many more images from his past…

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