senses of cinema wrote:
The form of the film was really derived from the conceptual basis of the film. Because the concept of the film was destruction, the form became destructive as well.

- Věra Chytilová (1)

I wanted to use colour concepts to disparage a lot of things. I had no intention whatsoever of arousing an aesthetic impression of beauty. But somewhere, early in the game, it turned out that the structure of things with respect to each other created aesthetics whose results I didn’t expect at all. Continue reading →

review by Daniel Bird- you can find more HERE :
Věra Chytilová’s Ovoce stromů rajských jíme (Fruit of Paradise, 1969) is an audacious combination of allegorical narrative and the avant-garde. Above all, it plays with the idea of searching for “truth” and questions our ability to accept it. It is a reflection on the nature of the film itself, as well as a personal testament of its reputedly “cynical” director’s commitment to “telling the truth.” It is a vivid testimony to the role of the “avant-garde” in 1960s Czechoslovak cinema. It is an ascendant of what Eisenstein described as “intellectual cinema.”

However, montage is more or less dispensed with, in favour of a plethora of visual associations and mental juxtapositions that are orchestrated through a succession of semi-improvised “happenings.” As Peter Hames has acknowledged, it boldly defies any “realistic” interpretation, yet encourages “active interpretation,” demanding that the viewer construct his or her own meaning. Continue reading →