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Ikarie XB 1 [Icarus XB 1] (Jindřich Polák, 1963)
Jul
20
Space Exploration Day
Two astronauts weightlessly pushing themselves through a round airlock. Their suits are eerily similar to the ones seen in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). DP: Jan Kališ.
Both anticapitalist and pre-Stanley space odyssey. Based on Stanislaw Lem's Obłok Magellana [The Magellanic Cloud] (1955).
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Ekstase [Ecstasy] (Gustav Machatý, 1933)
Jul
8
International Skinny Dip Day
Eva (Hedy Lamarr), swimming nude in a lake. DPs: Hans Androschin, Gerhard Huttula & Jan Stallich.
Eva (Hedy Lamarr) hangs her clothes over her horse's back, then – cut through a wonderfully voyeuristic moment – goes swimming in a lake. The foal, still carrying Eva's outfit, wanders off to find a stallion.
Ekstase is full of not so subtle, beautifully framed innuendo. #Horses are a recurring theme and make me wonder if it inspired the mustangs sequence in John Huston's The Misfits (1961), another story of doomed passion.
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Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera [Lemonade Joe or The Horse Opera] (Oldřich Lipský, 1964)
Apr
27
Kola Loka
A tough cowboy takes a bite out off a fiddle. DP: Vladimír Novotný.
“The Kola Loka is the law!”
– Limonádový Joe
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Malá morská víla [The Little Mermaid] (Karel Kachyňa, 1976)
Mar
3
National Dress In Blue Day
The little mermaid (Miroslava Safránková) in her wonderful sea-blue dress, puts a coral-red rose in her blue hair. DP: Jaroslav Kučera.
Miroslava Safránková plays Hans Christian Andersen's doomed little mermaid – Malá morská víla in Czech – who falls in love with a mortal and gives up her beautiful voice to be with him. Sadly, the mortal, a prince, doesn't recognize his mute saviour and doesn't return his love.
“The other day I got caught in some fishermen's net. Of course, I had to drown them. I couldn't allow them to touch me, could I?”
– the little mermaid
The wonderful soundtrack is by Zdeněk Liška who also composed music for Ikarie XB 1 (Jindřich Polák, 1963) and Spalovač mrtvol (Juraj Herz, 1969).
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Hroch [The Hippo] (Karel Steklý, 1973)
Feb
15
World Hippo Day
A poster for Hroch, showing a beautifully dressed woman in an animal enclosure feeding a hippopotamus what appears to be a consecrated wafer. A TV camera in the back records it all. DP: František Uldrich.
In this political satire criticising Czechoslovakia's “normalisation” period, a journalist learns about bank employee Bedrich Hroch, who – while attempting to determine how much #gold the local #zoo's hippopotamus' needs for a tooth replacement – is swallowed by the animal.
With the man happily residing inside the creature, his journalist friend hatches a plan to use the “talking hippo” for political means .
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Ucho [The Ear] (Karel Kachyňa, 1970)
Jan
27
Thomas Crapper Day
Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohatý) taking a break from the official's party in a pristine but claustrophobic, white-tiled toilet stall. DP: Josef Illík.
“Even you, Ear, can't listen in the toilet!”
– Ludvik
