MEMORA8ILIA

a filing cahinet for 8sided.blog

czechoslovakia

❝ With Return of the Prodigal Son, [director Evald] Schorm’s apparent risk was not so much that he took his story so far over the edge of believability that he needed to apologize in advance to his audience, but almost precisely the opposite. His trenchant portrayal of the numbing effect of life in contemporary Czechoslovakia, and his lead character’s indifference to the rewards of success that his society offered, was simply too devastatingly accurate, and potentially contagious, if its message were allowed to disseminate without some form of official reprimand hanging over it. Perhaps it was Schorm himself who provided the dismissive foreword, in order to get the censors to back off a bit, after he saw the fate of Daisies and A Report on the Party and Guests when they were both mothballed by government officials immediately upon completion. ❞ *

Návrat ztraceného syna | celý film | Česká filmová klasika

https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/07/08/navrat-ztraceneho-syna-cely-film-ceska-filmova/

The Cremator is a horror film of the most horrifying kind. It depicts bourgeois banality swept up in fascistic promises, with the meek and privileged ultimately accommodating authoritarianism’s terrible aims. The film also follows the ‘rise’ of a morally weak and opportunistic sociopath, very much a topic of our time. That the horror is accompanied by satirically comedic moments only increases its darkness.

Regardless, it’s an eminently watchable film, masterfully drawn to the verge of cinematic perfection. Juraj Herz’s pacing and story-telling reveal just enough while subtly revealing a lot, enforcing the gut punch of the last ten minutes. The innovative cinematography evocatively portrays the unreliability of our narrator, dipping in and out of the protagonist’s narcissistic headspace and his timid reality. Jump cuts, fish-eye lenses, and disorienting edits from scene to scene give the viewer a sense of the encroaching madness. The music from Zdeněk Liška is one of the best scary-movie scores at times, made even spookier as it alternates between light-hearted themes and waltzes. And, it must be said, the lead performance by Rudolf Hrušínský is one of the creepiest of all time — name your favorite creepy film villain, and I assure you Kopfrking easily ranks alongside. A masterpiece.

https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/06/11/the-cremator-is-a-horror-film-of-the-most/

The Conversation + Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? + Alphaville = Ucho (The Ear)

A tense, enthralling, and masterful depiction of the entwining of the personal and political as a part of life under a totalitarian regime. Ucho was filmed in 1969 in Czechslovakia and was unsurprisingly banned for 20 years, receiving its first wide release in 1990.

❝ The creation and suppression of The Ear were political events in themselves, and the film refers fearlessly to many taboo subjects of the Stalinist era: Party debauchery, anti-Semitic arrests, favoritism and corruption. But as courageous as is the film’s content, it should not overshadow [director Karel] Kachyňa’s innovative style. The film alternates scenes of the couple at home and flashbacks showing their increasingly sinister evening at the Party soiree. These flashbacks make extensive use of subjective camera from Ludvík’s viewpoint as he tries to find out why the minister he works for, Košara (né Karpeles — a Jewish name), has been arrested, and whether he himself might be next. ❞ *

https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/05/15/the-conversation-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf/

Tom Stoppard: Information is light

❝ Half the point I want to make is that I have had a charmed life. I was whisked out of the way of the Nazis, bundled out of the way of the Japanese army, and, after a safe and happy four years in India, found myself in England instead of returning to Czechoslovakia in good time to grow up under communism. But I haven’t made my point even yet. I wasn’t merely safe, I was in the land of tolerance, fair play and autonomous liberty, of habeas corpus, of the mother of parliaments, of freedom of speech, worship and assembly, of the English language. I didn’t make this list when I was eight, but by 18 I would have added the best and freest newspapers, forged in the crucible of modern liberty, and the best theatre. When I was 19 there occurred the Hungarian revolution, and my first interest was in how the story was being covered. On my 23rd birthday I panicked because I’d written nothing except journalism, and wrote a derivative play. When I was 31, Russian tanks rolled into Prague, and my wife got angry with me because I was acting English and not Czech. She was right. I didn’t feel Czech. I had no memory of Czechoslovakia. I condemned the invasion from the viewpoint of everything I had inherited at the age of eight, including my name. During all that time, I had never been without a bed, or clothes to put on, or food on the table, or without medicine when I was sick, or a school desk to sit at. As I grew up I never had to put on a uniform except as a boy scout. As a journalist and writer I had never been censored or told what to write. As a citizen I never had to fear the knock at the door. The second half of the point I want to make is that if politics is not about giving everybody a life as charmed as mine, it’s not about anything much. ❞

https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/04/03/tom-stoppard-information-is-light/