Jirí Menzel

The story of a soldier looking after a broken plane in a remote Soviet village. Meanwhile, the German-Soviet war breaks out, but he carries on guarding it, protecting it even against the NKVD and Red Army, brought there on the information of his conscientious fellow-citizens. Based on a book by Russian writer Vladimir Voynovich, published in 1975 in Paris; Voynovich himself emigrated in 1980 following persecution by the regime. The film uses almost exclusively non-professional actors, and its tone captures the atmosphere of the start of the war and also of coloured film.Read More »

Long-Repressed Tale of Repression
The junk heap to which the characters of “Larks on a String” are consigned is a kind of paradise. Here, in the early 1950’s, former members of Czechoslovakia’s banished bourgeoisie are nominally engaged in forced labor, but in fact are free to play cards, discuss philosophy, joke sardonically about their situation and languish as they choose.

The men in this group — among them a professor who refused to destroy decadent Western literature, a saxophonist whose very instrument was considered an offense against the state and a lawyer who upheld the radical idea that a defendant ought to be allowed to plead his case — also spend a lot of time trading secret smiles and sidelong glances with a group of female prisoners nearby. The women, dressed in drably functional uniforms, nonetheless manage to look nymphlike as they laugh and frolic and hum little tunes. The setting is bleak and the season unspecified, but in spirit, it might as well be spring.Read More »

Plot:
Episodic misadventures of people living in an isolated Czech holiday village. One man is collecting anything that is a bargain, including only shoes for the left leg (cheaper than buying them in a pair) while another enjoys watching TV with a goat in his coach. When hunters of one association shoot a boar in a school, an argument explodes because the school lies on the territory of another association of hunters. The school teacher, however, manages to reach a compromise: divide the boar meat between the two hunter camps. However, during dinner, the hunters again start a quarrel.Read More »

Quote:
“The entire town knows that I want to be a train dispatcher for the simple reason that I don’t want to do anything?just like my ancestors?but stand on the platform with a signal disc and avoid any hard work, while others have to drudge and toil.” – Milos HrmaRead More »

Synopsis:
While serving the cream of Prague society, humble waiter, Jan Díte (Ivan Barnev) dreams of owning his own hotel and becoming a millionaire. Full of desire and ambition, he hustles his way towards his dream. But getting a fortune and keeping it are two different things. Directed by celebrated Czech director Jirí Menzel and set in German occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II, I served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále) is a bitter-sweet comedy exploring the gradual maturing of an ambitious man who, suddenly in love and guided by stupidity rather than opportunism, finds himself on the side of the occupying power.Read More »

Two years after his worldwide hit Closely Watched Trains, Jiří Menzel directed this amusing idyll about three middle-aged men whose mellow summer is interrupted by the arrival of a circus performer and his beautiful assistant. A meditation on aging and sex, shot in warm, sun-dappled color, Capricious Summer is one of the New Wave’s loveliest reveries.Read More »