Left and Revolutionary Cinema: Czechoslovakia - (By Amos Vogel - 1974) - Movies - http://maxpages.com/czechcinema/Left_and_Revolutionary

"DEMONSTRATIONS"
("Strahov")
-Anonymous (1967)

A unique document from Prague, this film is an illegally made documentary of the student demonstrations in Strahov for better living conditions and of their bloody suppression by the police. The interviews with student leaders, faculty, and hospital personnel were all at considerable risk to the participants. The first illegal work from the East (where all film production is controlled by the state) could, of course, have been made only by a film professional with ready access to 35mm cameras and collaborating laboratories.

"JAN PALACH"
-Anonymous (1969)

The Czech student Jan Palach burned himself in Prague's Wensceslav Square in January 1969 in protest against the Soviet occupation of his country. His funeral was attended by more than half a million mourners. Profoundly moving, it is a deep experience in silent grief and a testimony of mass opposition. The new Czech puppet government is vainly attempting to recall this film from abroad.

"BUTTERFLIES DO NOT LIVE HERE"
("Motyli Tady Neziji")
-Miro Bernat (1958)

A poignant and harrowing study of the paintings and poems by Jewish child inmates of the Terecin concentration camp. Produced in illegal art classes during their imprisonment, they were carefully identified by name and biographical note, hidden away by the teacher-inmates, and accidentally recovered after the war, years after students and teachers had perished in the gas-chambers; a document of our era. The title derives from one of the poems; its author died at the age of twelve.

"...AND THE FIFTH HORSEMAN IS FEAR"
("A Paty Jezdec Je Strach...")
-Zbynek Brynych (1964)

Special note must be made of those courageous Czech films that preceded the Dubcek era, yet raised controversial questions or created embarrassing analogies. This expressionist, semi-surrealist drama of betrayal, cowardice, and heroism in a totalitarian state probes the varieties and limits of human behaviour under extreme conditions in brilliantly conceived sequences of hypnotic power. Telling the story of a Jewish doctor, unexpectedly confronted with a frightful choice, it raises basic questions. The oppressors, ostensibly Nazis, wear no uniforms; the events, ostensibly occuring during the last war, in fact take place in a timeless and therefore universal reality, reinforcing the film's oppressive topicality. The locale may be Prague; the theme is fear.

"DAISIES"
("Sedmikrasky")
-Vera Chytilova (1966)

Visually and structurally perhaps the most sensational film of the Czech film renaissance, this ia a mad, stylish, dadaist comedy, long banned by the censors. It is an orgy of spectacular visual delights, sensuous decor, and magnificent colour experiments, making a philosophical statement in the guise of a grotesque farce. Two dizzy young girls, bored and without any values, knowing neither past nor future, stumble through a bizarre series of chance pick-ups, wild adventures, eating orgies, and pie-throwing acts. Below the exaggeration, sarcasm, and exuberance lurks a serious comment on a fraudulent style of life, played in a game in which protagonists become victims. No work from the East has ever been further removed from the drab sterility of so-called 'socialist realism'. The stunning photography is by Jaroslav Kucera and the script by Ester Krumbachova, whose contributions to almost all major Czech films of the period denote her key role.

"WANDERING"
("Bloudeni")
-Jan Curik and Antonin Masa (1965)

This densely ideological, ambitious film is told in a sparse, seemingly realistic, yet ultimately mystifying style. A cryptic study in futility, the clash of generations, and the irrelevance of the past, it is a deceptive political allegory; contemporary and suffused with images and situations of magic realism. The story deals with a crisis in the lives of three people, which reflects the moral abyss between Stalinist and post-Stalinist generations. The father lives in the past, recalling his few achievements and many compromises. The son, unable to endure his hypocrisy and irrelevance, leaves home. To discover life for himself, he embarks on an ambiguous journey which ends in disillusionment and deeper awareness. With his already unstable life destroyed by his son's departure, the father follows him, but instead of finding his son, discovers himself. The thematic and formal subtlety of this work is astonishing, its meaningful ambiguity reminiscent of early Antonioni. Masa also wrote the even better screenplay for "Ordinary Courage".
'Values are relative, certainties uncertain. We move on thin ice. But, is not the only way out, the guarantee for human - and artistic - values, precisely to be found in the search itself?' - Antonin Masa

"FIREMAN'S BALL"
("Hori Ma Panenko")
-Milos Forman (1967)

Such is Forman's subversive artistry that some critics continue to see in his subtle films only light-hearted folk comedies, paying loving attention to naturalistic detail and the somewhat ridiculous foibles of man. It was, however, quite proper for the Czech right-wing and the neo-Stalinists to attack him, for beneath his robust and sharp humour lurks a sardonic criticism of the petty-bourgeois. Nowhere was this clearer than in this film, a hilarious and increasingly sombre tale. In Chaplinesque manner, it kept the audience laughing while displaying narrow-minded provincialism, greed, petty theft, and an unsavoury overall impression (quite consciously inculcated) that the so-called new society, not having produced a new man, was not new at all. Yet Forman clearly loves his people and was undoubtedly much disturbed when Czechoslovakia's 45,000 firemen officially threatened to resign on the film's release. They withdrew this threat only when Forman added an explanatory title to the opening sequence: 'This film is not against firemen, but against the regime.'

"THE DESERTER AND THE NOMADS"
("Zbehove A Tulaci")
-Juro Jakubisko (1968)

A powerful, original and obsessive work about war and death, permeated with expressionist outrage and cosmic pessimism. In three horrifying episodes set in World Wars I, II and III, we witness endless carnage, unmotivated death, the triumph of mindless violence, and orgies of blood-letting. One episode, dealing with Soviet Russian troops during the Second World War, shows them as venal, imperial, and lecherous, and ends with documentary footage of the (later) Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. As the tanks enter Prague, the sub-title reads: 'We thought they might have been another crew also making a film.' The horrifying last episode takes place in a world devasated by atomic war.

"BIRDS, ORPHANS AND FOOLS"
("Ptackove, Sirotci A Blazni")
-Juro Jakubisko (1971)

This delirious tour de force of creative camera work and montage progresses through a mad universe of surrealist tableaux and bizarre actions, with every composition a poem in design and colour. Two fellows and a girl, war orphans and drop-outs from organized society, attempt to live a life of freedom and innocence in a world of insanity and war, in an enchantingly ramshackle house where cupboards hang from ceilings and birds, old men, and animals wander freely. But there is desperation barely below the surface of this metaphor of Consciousness Three, and innocence cannot subsist in our world. This unconventional fantasy blends dream and reality, tenderness and cruelty with a rather spectacular use of distortion lenses, agitated cameras, special tints, visual puns, and variable screen sizes. The production of such pessimistically libertarian parables by Eastern directors - in this case a Slovak temporarily working in France - is symptomatic. Jakubisco is now back in Slovakia.

"THE JOKE"
("ZERT")
-Jaromil Jires (1968)

Possibly the most shattering indictment of totalitarianism to come out of a Communist country, this film was completed just after the Soviet tanks rolled into the streets of Prague in 1968. It is an astonishingly honest and disturbing film not only for its devastating attack on Stalinism, but also for its uncompromising view of the hypocrisy of political turncoats and the opportunistic new middle classes. Chronicling one man's journey from youthful frivolity through political imprisonment to final awareness, it is a chilling examination of a corrupt society blighted by fear as much as by the cynicism that pays lip-service to 'humanitarian' ideals.

"A TOWN PRESENTED TO THE JEWS AS A GIFT BY THE FUHRER"
("Mesto Darovane")
-Vladimir Kressl (1968)

An unprecedented historical document. The Nazi concentration camp of Terecin in Czechoslovakia was unique in occupying the area of an entire city, 'presented as a gift to the Jews by the Fuhrer' in an obscene gesture. In preparation for a visit by the International Red Cross 'to investigate conditions', the Nazis began producing what was to have been a forty-minute documentary film extolling the happy life of the camp's inmates and forced a Jewish prisoner, the well known actor Kurt Gerron, of 'Blue Angel' fame to direct it. About half of this unfinished film was accidently recovered after the war by the Czechs and is incorporated in this instructive, horrifying object lesson of how 'reality' can be manipulated and how false the 'authentic' film image can be; for here, in this contrived documentary we see the actual inmates of the camp-city at soccer games, listening to concerts, peacefully working at various jobs, tending their gardens in their spare time. It is difficult to decide what is more horrific; the 'use' (by force) of human beings as actors in a portrayal of their lives that they knew to be false; or their constant, eager smiles to the camera (anything less may have meant instant death). 'I like it here in Terecin,' one of the inmates says; 'I lack nothing.' Within months, he and all the other hundreds of happy, smiling people in this film were exterminated.

"THE CREMATOR"
("Spalovac Mrtvol")
-Juraj Herz (1968)

A provocative attempt to penetrate the origins of sado-sexual Nazi mentality is made in this oppressive, strongly expressionist film about an inhibited petty-bourgeois family-man whose work with corpses at the local crematorium - 'to free them for the after-life' - gains unexpected proportions during the Nazi occupation. His meek wife agrees to let herself be hanged by him, his son is murdered and added to somebody else's coffin, and his final appointment as head of an extermination camp - once again to dispatch people to freedom - appears as logical denouement to a bizarre, powerful story. Editing and camerawork is strongly influenced by the new cinema in the West. Equally surprising for the puritanical East is its clear, yet entirely 'hidden' portrayal of fellatio, with the girl under a table and the man sitting behind it; at the end she emerges wiping her mouth.

"MEDITATION ON THE END OF HUMAN LIFE"
("Posledni Veci Cloveka")
-Jovan Kubicek (1967)

A very original student film from Prague's famed film school, made during the period of liberalization. This clear-eyed study of funeral services and crematoria reflects on how mass production methods and the impersonality of technological society have invaded even this last ritual. An accelerated sequence condenses the endless repetitions of identical funeral services, the arrivals and departures of mourners, into a few moments of sad comment. Though crematoria in the East are fast, popular, and clean, the director points to the even more efficient ones of Terecin and Hiroshima.

"REPORT ON THE PARTY AND THE GUESTS"
("O Slavnosti A Hostech")
-Jan Nemec (1966)

The most famous and certainly one of the most important masterpieces of the Czech film renaissance, this daring work was promptly banned on completion in 1966, defiantly awarded the Czech Critics' Prize in 1967 while under ban, and released only under Dubcek. As we watch its deceptive progress, Renoir turns into Bunuel, and we discover a scathing, pessimistic statement about human conduct under totalitarianism, chilling, timeless, uncomfortably familiar. The assorted opportunists, camp-followers, hypocrites, willing victims, and vapid petty-bourgeois are courageously (now tragically) played by leading Czech artists, writers, filmmakers, and intellectuals, all involved in the short-lived Czech reform movement.
Guests have gathered for an outdoor party convoked by a mysterious host. Their merry-making is rudely disturbed by the arrival of Rudolph, a stranger, and his cohorts who herd the group into a circle in a clearing for an interrogation regarding an unspecified transgression and subject them to insults, humiliations, and brute force. All comply, except one who finds that his revolt earns him the emnity of his friends who now unthinkingly collaborate, blindly following Rudolph's orders so as not to be excluded from the party. The one-man revolt is overcome by force, just as the genial host appears, smilingly apologizes for Rudolph's rude behaviour, and explains that it has all been a joke. Whereupon the guests sit down at beautifully appointed tables to continue the festivities, forgetting what has happened. But one of the group refuses to play the game; he cannot forget. He leaves in protest, his act of free will evoking great uneasiness among rulers, active collaborators, and passive conformists alike. It is Rudolph who proposes that ('to re-establish the necessary equilibrium') it is essential to hunt the defector down with dogs and guns and return him to the fold at all costs. The hunt begins; the candles are snuffed out; and dog barks echo on the black screen as the film ends.

"DISTANT JOURNEY"
("Ghetto Terezin")
-Alfred Radok (1948)

Over the years, the stature of this unaccountably neglected masterpiece of the humanist cinema has been growing. An unrelenting epic of human suffering and degradation, it is one of the very few films that succeed in making the horror and inexplicable reality of the concentration camp universe come alive. Intentionally intensified, non-realist film techniques (derived from both expressionist and surrealist tradition) are utilized as only they can cope with the enormity of the event. These 'distortions' of reality reveal its inner truth, simultaneously building up an atmosphere of nightmare and madness that explodes in final mass destruction.

"REFLECTION"
("Zrcadleni")
-Evald Schorm (1965)

A leading director of the Czech film renaissance provides a philosophical meditation on life and death, set amidst complex hospital apparatus and the sadness, hope, or resignation of the patients. Existentialist rather than optimist, the approach is one of humanistic atheism, accepting death as part of life. Interviews with doctors and nurses explore their outlook; all speak of death as a fact, without either sentimentality or religiosity. The studied objectivity of the film only imperfectly hides an intense emotionality.

"ORDINARY COURAGE"
("Kazdy Den Odvahu")
-Evald Schorm (1964)

Unquestionably one of the most important antecedents of the Czech renaissance, long under censorship ban, this searing, passionate film is the first fully achieved work from the East to deal with alienation and the conflict between the revolutionaries and careerists in a 'socialist' society. It was this film that established Schorm as the intellectual leader of the young Czech film renaissance. Stylistically influenced by Antonioni, it tells the tragic story of a young Communist activist, who, attempting to remain faithful to revolutionary ideals as he sees them, finds himself in increasing conflict with his environment. His speeches turn into cliches, his political activities become meaningless, his love affairs grow stale; all around are opportunists or hard-drinking worker-bourgeois. Audacious ideological implications, unmistakable visual symbols, and incisive comments on post-revolutionary reality stamp this bitter and ironic film as a political work of great importance. The denouement is tragic and extremely moving.
'In films we are always being offered the apparently truthful, outer face of reality. This naturalism, dependent on an often deceptive common sense, is misleading; it takes us to a realism of probable imitation, to elusiveness, ceaseless explanations, clarifications and substantiations, so that nobody will have any doubts. The strength of the raw fact, of the fantastic vision disappears' - Evald Schorm

"BE SURE TO BEHAVE"
("A Sekat Dobrotu")
-Peter Solan (1968)

It is one thing to make a fictional film in the West about unjust imprisonment in one of Stalin's jails; it was another matter to do so in Czechoslovakia, even under Dubcek, for who knew whether he would last. In this film a woman prisoner, harshly incarcerated, is suddenly released as unpredictably as she had been imprisoned; 'Stalin is dead,' she is told, and then, significantly, 'Be sure to behave.'

"MY DEAREST WISH"
("Nejvetsi Prani")
-Jan Spata (1965)

Another unique document from the Czech liberalization period: obviously unrehearsed interviews with over one hundred young Czechs from all walks of life who are asked about their greatest wish. The fascinating answers (and the unguarded, innocent faces accompanying them) reveal the absence of official 'socialist' ideology and the persistence of bourgeois or human values: consumer goods, marriage, love, personal freedom, the right to travel abroad, the end of parental or political tutelage. The film's honesty and frankness remain unprecedented in the Eastern bloc.

"THE APARTMENT"
("Byt")
-Jan Svankmajer (1968)

In this ominous, brilliantly conceived work, objects - the unfortunate apartment dweller's world - conspire against him; a mirror only the back of his head, a stove, when lit, drips water and a soup spoon has holes in it. The axe offered him by a stranger to help him break out to freedom only reveals, on use, a second stone wall, carrying thousands of names, and a pencil, with which he slowly writes his own name: Josef K.

"ARCHANGEL GABRIEL"
("Archandel Gabriel A Pani Husa")
-Jiri Trnka (1965)

Taken from Boccaccio's 'Decameron', this lovely puppet film tells the bawdy story of the beautiful young Venetian lady who confesses her sinful passion for the Archangel Gabriel to a lustful monk, who promptly impersonates him in her bedroom with predictable results. Amidst the film's ribaldry, the hypocrisy and false piety of the monk are mercilessly mocked.
(Copyright-Random House Inc., New York)

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