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A DVD release introduces director Vera Chytilova's
surreal, Czech New Wave comedy Daisies to
new audiences.
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Cinematic Golden Ages tend to lose their luster after some time. There are always new and exciting things to take their place. Based on that opinion, it should come as no surprise that little has been done recently to recognize the Czech New Wave of the 1960s. The Berlin Wall is long gone, and a unified Europe has emerged from its Cold War ashes. Central and Eastern Europe are riding the economic wave of post-communist free markets. For some people, celebrating the Czech New Wave, arguably one of the great film movements, would overemphasize Eastern Europe's troubled past.
A new series of five Czech New Wave films have been released by Facets Video: the surreal comedy, Daisies; the Western spoof, Lemonade Joe; director Jiri Menzel's midlife drama, Capricious Summer; The Joke, an adaptation of Milan Kundera's satirical novel; and the World War II drama, Adelheid. They join some recently released Czech New Wave titles from The Criterion Collection, including Milos Forman's romance, Loves of a Blonde; Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains, arguably the most beloved of all the Czech New Wave films; Forman's comic satire, The Firemen's Ball; and Ivan Passer's outrageous comedy, Intimate Lighting.
Together, these videos offer avid moviegoers the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with significant entries from the Czech New Wave without searching for a repertory theater. Re-watching these films, it's clear that some of the greatest foreign films include many Czech New Wave titles.
Beautiful black-and-white photography, humanistic performances and an absurd spirit are the hallmarks of Closely Watched Trains, Menzel's 1966 film about staff at a small-town railway station during the German occupation in World War II. Its aesthetic polish and dramatic finale are equal to any Western Wave film, including France's. Still, its playful storytelling, a Czech trademark, allows Closely Watched Trains to remain firmly entrenched in Czech literary tradition.
Chytilova's avant-garde comedy, Daisies, is the ravishing beauty among these Czech titles. Richer and more profound than conventional film narratives, Daisies follows the outrageous escapades of two female friends, both named Marie (Jitka Cerhova and Ivana Karbanova), as they enact a rampage of mischievous destruction and flirty anarchy. Out of the moviegoer's eye for some time, a significant film like Daisies loses its sense of importance when it loses its familiarity. Few films, Western or otherwise, share Daisies' sense of playful irony. Holding tight to its feminist themes, Chytilova has made a film where the female protagonists remain constantly in control.
Daisies helps explain how cheeky Czech New Wave films helped the country come to terms with its violent history of political repression. Through a film like Daisies, Czech audiences possess an artistic outlet for criticizing their Communist authorities. Enraged by its climax, where the two Maries destroy a luxurious banquet hall, government leaders banned the film, only agreeing to briefly release it one year later.
A stricter fate befell The Fireman's Ball, a political satire about a small-town firemen's ball that turns into a complete disaster. The film is more intimate than any of Forman's Hollywood films. The Firemen's Ball was playing in Czech theaters while the country was invaded in August 1968 by Soviet forces. As Soviet tanks rolled through Prague's Wenceslas Square, The Firemen's Ball was "banned forever" and never played again in communist Czechoslovakia. Forman soon relocated to the United States, leaving behind The Firemen's Ball as a poignant example of the type of work he might have done in a politically tolerant Czechoslovakia.
The Joke, a satirical drama about a ladies man sentenced to six years in a labor camp for sending an erotic postcard, reveals the tenuous relationship these films had with the politics surrounding them. The Joke was shot during the 1968 Prague Spring, yet its sly satire about Stalinist politics confirms that it would meet local obstacles despite the growing success of Czech films abroad.
From 1965 to 1968, the Czech New Wave peaked with the films The Shop on the Main Street by Ján Kádár and Elmar Klos (1965) and Mebzel's Closely Watched Trains (1966), both receiving Oscars for best foreign language film. Forman's Loves of a Blonde (1966) and Firemen's Ball (1968) also received Academy Award nominations.
Forman like Passer and Menzel, was a graduate of FAMU, the country's state film school. Firemen's Ball thrives on the realistic performances of its non-professional cast and the film's adventurous embrace of social satire. It's the type of audacious film that could only be made by a young Turk, although it's hard to perceive Forman in that way today.
Hollywood proved to be a refuge for a fleeing auteur like Forman. Menzel, who remained in Prague after the Soviet invasion, continues to direct stage plays and films under great political strain.
The 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia brought a quick end to the Czech New Wave. Historians have argued that the movement was already past its peak by the time Soviet tanks entered Prague, but we'll never know for sure.
After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, promises of democracy, artistic freedoms and new economic investment have allowed the Czech film movement to renew itself. Young Czech filmmakers such as Jan Sverak (Kolya, Elementary School and Dark Blue World) and fantasy storyteller Jan Svankmajer (Conspirators of Pleasure) continue to introduce new Czech films to worldwide audiences. Dusan Hanak's Paper Heads (1995) takes a critical look at 40 years of Communism in Czechoslovakia.
For now, the legacy of postwar Soviet domination has been replaced by rampant American-style capitalism. In a marketplace hungry for American films, the era of the Eastern European art cinema looks to be in trouble. Commercial restraints have replaced political censorship as the major obstacle for Czech filmmakers. Now that the Velvet Revolution is over, Czech filmmakers ask: So what?
It's hard to battle Hollywood's English-language machine. These Czech New Wave DVDs remember a time when national cinema movements didn't have to. ©
