Drak sa vracia [Dragon's Return] (Eduard Grečner, 1968)
Aug
6
Eva (Emília Vášáryová) stares into the fire on which a small anthropomorphic cooking vessel is mounted. DP: Vincent Rosinec.
L'homme qui ment [The Man Who Lies] (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1968)
Jul
25
soup
The titular man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) at a dinner table, observed by Sylvia (Sylvia Turbová) and Maria (Sylvie Bréal). The room is white and sparsely furnished. DP: Igor Luther.
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 very 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).
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.
“The Kola Loka is the law!”
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.
– Limonádový Joe
Vynález zkázy [A Deadly Invention] (Karel Zeman, 1958)
“Jules Verne was a dreamer. He was a dedicated follower of technology, but he saw it through his own eyes, and the eyes of his time. But with his vast imagination, he created a whole world of magical things imbued with a delightful naiveté, which charms us even today.” —Karel Zeman
Karel Zeman was a Czech film maker who seemingly magically combined live action with stop motion animation. In his Vynález zkázy, loosely based on Jules Verne's Face au Drapeau [Facing the Flag aka For the Flag] (1896), a fiendish count kidnaps a professor to get his hands on a terrible super-weapon. Underwater pursuits commence!
Based on the engravings that accompany the Verne story, Zeman came up with fantastic, highly stylised in-camera effects that make the sets, actors and props resemble cross-hatched etchings.
That's more than enough words for such a spectacle. Watch the trailer
#Bales2023FilmChallenge #KarelZeman #JulesVerne #LuborTokos #StopMotion #animation #fantasy #adventure #SciFi #BookAdaptation #trailer #Czechoslovakia #1950s ★★★½
“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?”
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 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).
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 .
“Even you, Ear, can't listen in the toilet!”
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.
– Ludvik
