#czech film
petr_jakl Dnes vecer mame projekci Zizky na filmovem festivalu v Cannes, tak se musim vohaknout We’ve got a screening of Medieval in Cannes today.
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Ben Foster, Matthew GoodE, Sophie Lowe, Michael Caine, Til Schweiger, Roland Møller, William Moseley
Marché du Film, France
Daisies (1966)
Szép lányok ne sírjatok (1970), director Márta Mészáros
Radoslav Brzobohatý and Jiřina Bohdalová in Karel Kachyňa’s political thriller The Ear (Ucho). (made in 1970, but not released until 1990).
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Rare English version of Karel Gott’s hit “Kdepak ty ptáčku hnízdo máš” from a 1973 fairy tale movie Three Wishes for Cinderella
To answer question in your tags “Who came up with Three Wishes,” I don’t know who, but I guess I know why. Literally translated title “Three Nuts for Cinderella”(or “Three Little Nuts for Cinderalla,” to be more precise) would bring some unfortunate sexual connotations and possible alternative “Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella” sounds really clumsy (although that is apparently a title under which it was once aired on BBC in the 1970s).
Ondřej Vetchý as Lucifer in upcoming fairy tale Čertí brko aka The Magic Quill (2018), dir. by Marek Najbrt
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Jan Kačer and Jana Brejchová in Return of the Prodigal Son (Návrat ztraceného syna), 1967, dir. by Evald Schorm
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Hastrman (The Water Spirit) (2018), directed by Ondřej Havelka:
“A strange nobleman returning after years abroad to a small Bohemian village in the beginning of 19th century. The nobleman feels closer to animals despite looking like a human. He is a Hastrman - a water spirit. Water is his element. He loves it, understands it and communicates with it. He needs water not only to sustain his life, but also to gain superhuman strength and dexterity. In this romantic, fantastical, yet ironic story, love brings Hastrman unexpected happiness with an agonizing dilemma: whether to remain a wild creature or to cross the boundaries and get closer to become a human. Vivid and earthy folklore of local villagers brings authenticity to pagan folkways, yet the story ends in present times.”
I can’t wait to see this.
Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) - Prezít svuj zivot (teorie a praxe) (Slovakia, 2010)
Rating: 8/10 stars
I’ve long admired the work of Jan Švankmajer. His claymation shorts from the 70s and 80s are surrealist classics to this day. Although the famed Czech director is in his 80s now, his films are still cutting edge masterpieces. His trademark use of stop motion and montages of paper cutouts make his movies amongst the most unique in the world.
Surviving Life is the tale of a middle aged man who begins dreaming of another woman. A psychiatrist works with him to try and analyze the dreams from a Freudian/Jung perspective. Rather than wishing the dreams to stop, since he loves and is loyal to his wife, he wants them to continue and goes to great pains to induce them and direct them at his will. As with most dreams the plot is always shifting – characters change, plots unravel and redevelop in a new but slightly familiar form.
It’s a wild, surrealist ride with all sorts of animation wizardry intermixed with the story. You simply bask in the oddness of it all until the end when the various yarns all come together revealing the finished tapestry of this man’s past of which even he was unaware.
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Byl jednou jeden král… / Once Upon a Time, There Was a King… (1954), dir. by Bořivoj Zeman.
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R.I.P.Juraj Herz(1934-2018)
Oh no. One of my favourite Czech directors (although he was born in Slovakia) has passed away. As much as I love his three internationally most famous films The Cremator(1969),Morgiana (1972) and Beauty and the Beast(1978), I must say that pretty much everything he has ever made is worth watching, including seemingly marginal work for television.
Despite being often mistakenly labeled as a “Czech New Wave” director, he actually never filmed anything in this typical “cinema verité” style. Similarly to Václav Vorlíček, Karel Zeman, Jindřich Polák or Oldřich Lipský, he belonged to the parallel line of Czech genre filmmakers, inventing their own imaginary worlds as a way to escape reality.
He is now mostly famous for his frequent flirting with horror (besides the above mentioned, in A Touch of a Butterfly(1973),The Ninth Heart (1979) or Ferat Vampire (1982)), but he also made a whodunit Sign of the Cancer (1965), fantasy musical Limping Devil (1968), melodrama A Day for My Love (1976), gangster movie parody Bulldogs and Cherries (1981), post-apocalyptic fantasy The Magpie in the Whisp (1983) or absolutely brilliant 6-part tribute to silent era slapstick comedies Gagman (1987). And much,much more than that. He is already missed.
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