On this special episode of The Projection Booth, Kevin Heffernan and Samm Deighan join Mike to discuss Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde (1966). A mix of professional and non-professional actors, the film tells the tale of Andula (Hana Brejchová), one of hundreds of women that work in a factory who is introduced to an "eligible male" via a government-sponsored dance.
The track was originally produced for Second Run as the audio commentary for their A Blonde in Love blu-ray release.
We conclude Czechtember 2019 with a look at Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos’s The Shop on High Street. Also known as The Shop on High Street, the film was released in 1965 and written by
Ladislav Grosman, based on his own story and book. The film tells the tale of Tono (Jozef Kroner), a carpenter who has been refused from working on his little town’s major building project. Instead, he’s assigned to be the Aryan face of a Jewish shop run currently by Mrs. Lautman (Ida Kamińska), a nearly deaf and partially blind widow.
Jonathan Owen joins Mike to discuss this heart-wrenching story.
Czechtember 2019 continues with a look at Jaromil Jireš’s The Joke . Shot in 1968 and released in 1969, the film was adapted by Jires and Milan Kundera, the author of the book of the same name. It tells the tale of Ludvik (Josef Somr) who was ousted from the Communist party after the youthful indiscretion of making a joke. He spends the rest of his life feeling the effects of this including hatching a plan for revenge on the university student who ousted him that takes 15 years to fulfill.
One of the casualties of the Warsaw Pack invasion, Karel Kachyna's The Ear (1970) was locked away for twenty years. It's a tale of a night after a political purge where our main characters -- Ludvic (Radoslav Brzobohatý) and Anna (Jirina Bohdalová) -- argue while learning that they’ve become the subject of government surveillance.
We're kicking off Czechtember 2019 with a look at Jan Schmidt's End of August at the Ozone Hotel (AKA Konec srpna v Hotelu Ozon). Released in 1967 the film is another in a collaboration between Schmidt and screenwriter Pavel Jurácek (who we discussed on our Case for a Rookie Hangman episode. Jurácek wrote the screenplay which has a group of women trying to survive in the post nuclear apocalypse. The film moves at a slow but determined pace and should not be viewed if you’re sensitive to animal cruelty.
Kat Ellinger and Rahne Alexander join Mike to discuss the film as well as some other "quiet apocalypse" movies.
#Czechtember2018 concludes with a look at Václav Vorlícek's Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966). Co-written by Vorlicek and Milos Macourek, the film concerns a couple, Ruzenka and and Jindrich Beránek. Ruzenka (Dana Medrická) is a prestigious scientist who has discovered how to manipulate dreams -- though there are some unexpected consequences. Meanwhile, Jindrich (Jirí Sovák) makes his own discovery as he reads a comic series about Jessie (Olga Schoberová) and her anti-gravitational gloves, just the thing to help him out at his job.
Czechtember 2018 continues with a discussion of František Vláčil's Marketa Lazarová (1967). Based on the book by Vladislav Vančura, the film is an epic tale of fighting tribes in the 13th Century in the area that would become Czechoslovakia. The film is named after the maiden Marketa Lazarova (Magda Vásáryová) who befalls one of the many brigands in the sweeping, beautiful, black and white film.
Czechtember 2018 continues with a look at Antonín Moskalyk’s Dita Saxová (1968). Adapted by Arnost Lustig (Diamonds in the Night, Transport from Paradise) and based on his novel, the film is the story of our titular Dita Saxova (Krystyna Mikolajewska), a survivor of Nazi death camps who carries with her survivor’s guilt. She moves from one relationship to another without seeming to have a care in the world, though this ultimately doesn’t seem to be the case.
Chris Stachiw of Kulture Shocked joins Mike to discuss this devastating film.
Zbyněk Brynych’s 1965 film The Fifth Horseman is Fear stars Miroslav Macháček as Dr. Braun. The film is ostensibly set during the Nazi occupation of Prague where Dr. Braun isn’t practicing medicine. Instead he’s cataloging the items the Nazis have pilfered from Jews who we can assume have been sent to the slaughter. This is never spoken aloud nor are a lot of other things. Instead, the film is rife with a sense of overwhelming dread that manifests in several interesting ways.
We wrap up the first Czechtember series with a film from director Oldřich Lipský, 1966's Happy End, an experimental comedy (which is as unusual as that sounds) that puts shots in opposite order and runs motion backward from the death of our main character (Vladimír Menšík) while he gives the voice-over account of life from birth. Of course, this provides us with constant ironic juxtapositions.
The film was co-written by Lipský and Milos Macourek, the screenwriter behind some of the best comedies out of Czechoslovakia in the '60s and '70s.
Czechtember continues with a look at Juraj Herz's The Cremator (AKA Spalovac mrtvol). Released in 1968, the year of the Prague Spring, the film stars Rudolf Hrusínský as Karl (or Roman) Kopfrkingl, a man dedicated to the idea of liberating the soul from the body through the practice of cremation.
Samm Deighan joins Mike to discuss collaborators and the madness that gripped the world in the 1930s and '40s.
Update: Second Run is putting out The Cremator on Blu-Ray which features commentary by Kat Ellinger, an essay by Daniel Bird, and this episode of The Projection Booth.
Special Guest: Peter Hames Guest Co-Hosts: Kat Ellinger, Kevin Heffernan
Czechtember continues with a look at Pavel Jurácek's Case for a Rookie Hangman (AKA Prípad pro zacínajícího kata) from 1970. Very loosely based on the third part of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the film tells the tale of Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) in the land of Balnibarbi, a surrealistic landscape where Lemuel has a hard time finding his footing, literally.
Special Guests: Jiri Menzel, Peter Hames Guest Co-Hosts: Jonathan Owen, Samm Deighan
We kick off the first annual "Czechtember" with a look at the most-easily accessible films of the Czech New Wave, the charmingly disarming 1966 film Closely Watched Trains (AKA Ostre Sledované Vlaky or Closely Observed Trains). Co-written and directed by Jirí Menzel and based upon Bohumil Hrabal's novella, the film stars Václav Neckár as Milos Hrma, a young man from a family of eccentrics. Not wanting to work too hard, he gets a job at the local railway station where he's mentored by the earthly Hubicka (Josef Somr) and Nazi-sympathizer Zednicek (Vlastimil Brodský).
Interviews:
Peter Hames, author of The Czechoslovak New Wave: 1:28:00 Music: "Train Round The Bend" - The Velvet Underground
Jiri Menzel, director of Closely Watched Trains: 1:43:00 Music: "Down There By The Train" - Tom Waits
Guest Co-Hosts: Samm Deighan, Kevin Heffernan
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