‘Reviews’ Archives
Marketa Lazarová
Czechoslovakia, 1967, black and white, 162 minsFirst, the superlatives. While I’m not competent to judge whether Marketa Lazarová really is the greatest Czech film ever made (as asserted by a poll of 100 Czech film critics in 1998), after three viewings I’m certainly confident enough to rank it alongside Bergman’s Virgin Spring [...]
The White Dove
Holubice Czechoslovakia, 1960, black and white, 76 minsFrantišek Vláčil's debut feature, after a decade spent making shorts and documentaries, is a self-consciously poetic portrait of children and their relationship to the world around them.It's based around two parallel situations: young Susanne, living on an unnamed Baltic island, awaits the [...]
More Czech reviews
I've just ported over the rest of the full-length reviews from my old blog - see below for individual posts. The comments have also been transferred, which explains why the dates of many of them seem to predate this blog's official existence.
Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea
Zítra vstanu a opařím se čajem 1977, colour, 95 mins Director: Jindřich Polák Producer: Jan Šuster Screenplay: Jindřich Polák, Miloš Macourek, based on the short story by Josef Nesvadba Photography: Jan Kališ Editor: Zdeněk Stehlík Design: Milan Nejedlý Music: Karel Svoboda Cast: Petr Kostka (Jan Bureš / Karel Bureš); [...]
Icarus XB-1 / Voyage to the End of the Universe
Ikarie XB 1 Czechoslovakia, 1963, black and white, 87 minsIn many ways the missing link between Forbidden Planet and 2001: A Space Odyssey (and Star Trek), Icarus XB-1 is a fascinating sci-fi curio. For decades this was only available to English-speaking viewers in the form of Voyage to the End of the Universe, one of American International [...]
Diamonds of the Night
Démanty noci Czechoslovakia, 1964, black and white, 64 minsOne of the earliest Czech New Wave films, Jan Němec's debut feature Diamonds of the Night (Démanty noci) is also one of the most startling, and remains a thrillingly original piece of cinema even today. Shot largely hand-held and virtually dialogue-free, it follows the desperate [...]
The Hand
Ruka Czechoslovakia, 1965, colour, 18 mins Universally recognised as both the founder and the supreme master of the Czech puppet cinema tradition (an accolade far less trivial within Czech culture than it might seem in the West, where puppetry has long been regarded almost exclusively as a children's medium), Jiří Trnka (1912-1969) was [...]
My Sweet Little Village
Vesničko má středisková Czechoslovakia, 1985, colour, 100 mins A gigantic box-office hit on its original release (5 million tickets sold in a country whose population wasn't much more than double that), Jiří Menzel's gently subversive comedy My Sweet Little Village is clearly regarded with immense and continuing affection in the Czech [...]
Saviour’s Square
Saviour's Square Plac Zbawiciela 2006, colour, 105 mins Directors: Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze Producer: Juliusz Machulski Script: Joanna Kos-Krauze, Krzysztof Krauze, with additional dialogue by Arkadiusz Janiczek, Jowita Miondlikowska, Ewa Wencel Camera: Wojciech Staroń Editing: Krzysztof Szpetmański Production Design: Monika [...]
The Debt
Dług Poland, 1999, colour, 102 minsI've been asked to write a short piece on the Polish director Krzysztof Krauze for the London Film Festival website (his latest film Saviour's Square/Plac Zbawiciela is screening there on October 24 and 27), so I caught up with his 1999 breakthrough film The Debt. I knew absolutely nothing about it in advance [...]