"film lovers are sick people"
Here are some quick notes on my recent film activities....
I finally got a chance to watch the DVD of Closely Watched Trains (1966), directed by Jiří Menzel, that I bought in the States but didn't watch before I left. A very good film, and certainly deserving of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award it won in 1968. Although it's a somewhat "normal" or straightforward coming-of-age story (not some of the the arty crazy business I know everyone loves so much), Menzel and writer Bohumil Hrabel give the film a genuine energy and sense of humor that I can't help thinking that even Zach would really enjoy. To put it in his words regarding the Czech work of Miloš Forman, it restores your faith in narrative filmmaking. It should be available in any decent video store--check it out.
On Friday I had the opportunity to see a recent Czech film called Cesky Sen (Czech Dream). It's a documentary-ish stunt pulled off by a couple of FAMU students (from Charles University's film school), who got a bunch of funding and put together a massive advertising campaign for a 'hypermarket' (think Costco or something like that), except the whole thing was a scam to see if they could get peole to show up for the 'grand opening' and then see how they would react when they found out the store and all its great deals were nothing more than a giant rainbow-covered canvas draped over some scaffolding out in a meadow. It's really hiliarious and pretty amazing social commentary at the same time--some of the things that people on both ends (advertisers and consumers) said were extremely interesting and exceptionally telling about the role of advertising in modern consumerism. The stunt provoked a heated debate in the Czech Republic media (which is deftly worked into the film itself) but at the very least it got people talking about these issues (which, in my opinion, supercedes the 'meanness' of tricking a bunch of people into traveling to a grand opening).
What sent us off to see this film was the fact that our music teacher, Pavel, was wearing a Cesky Sen t-shirt during our first class. A couple of us had heard about the film, and asked him about his shirt, to which he nonchalantly replied, "Oh yes, that's my brother's film." Turns out his brother is one of the two students who made and 'starred' in the film, and this Wednesday they're coming in to discuss it with us. The Czech Republic is such a tiny place with such a tightly-knit artistic community, that apparently this happens all the time. Awesome. I expect I'll be writing more about this in the future--in fact, I emailed a professor of mine from BU (he's got a full-time position at Emerson now, actually) and he told me that I should write an article about the whole thing because there are some journals that might be interested. Yes!
Unfortunately I don't think it's available in the US, or will even be released there anytime soon, which is sad because given the recent success of Michael Moore's work as well as that Super-size Me movie, Cesky Sen is something I think would do very well. Y'all will just have to wait until I bring a copy back.
Then, on Saturday, we went back to Kino Světozor, which is a pretty great art-house cinema (their slogan is "Popcorn Free 100% Culture"), to see Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-up (1966). I'm not going to say much about it except that it's a great film and the cinematography is fucking brilliant in a rather subtle way and I love it (the first scene in the park especially). It was really good to finally see the thing all the way through, and on a big screen no less. More trips to Světozor are definitely going to happen.
Well, that's it for now. My next post will be very interesting I'm sure--I'm switching host families. My current one and I are just not a good match at all. But I don't have time to get into it right now, as I'm actually on my way to found out when this whole thing is going down. I've also got a really fucking cool music post in the pipeline, and tons of other shit is going down--films, Lanterna Magika, and hopefully that Psychic TV show, which is on the same night as Lanterna Magika, but we're gonna make it work goddamn it!
I finally got a chance to watch the DVD of Closely Watched Trains (1966), directed by Jiří Menzel, that I bought in the States but didn't watch before I left. A very good film, and certainly deserving of the Best Foreign Film Academy Award it won in 1968. Although it's a somewhat "normal" or straightforward coming-of-age story (not some of the the arty crazy business I know everyone loves so much), Menzel and writer Bohumil Hrabel give the film a genuine energy and sense of humor that I can't help thinking that even Zach would really enjoy. To put it in his words regarding the Czech work of Miloš Forman, it restores your faith in narrative filmmaking. It should be available in any decent video store--check it out.
On Friday I had the opportunity to see a recent Czech film called Cesky Sen (Czech Dream). It's a documentary-ish stunt pulled off by a couple of FAMU students (from Charles University's film school), who got a bunch of funding and put together a massive advertising campaign for a 'hypermarket' (think Costco or something like that), except the whole thing was a scam to see if they could get peole to show up for the 'grand opening' and then see how they would react when they found out the store and all its great deals were nothing more than a giant rainbow-covered canvas draped over some scaffolding out in a meadow. It's really hiliarious and pretty amazing social commentary at the same time--some of the things that people on both ends (advertisers and consumers) said were extremely interesting and exceptionally telling about the role of advertising in modern consumerism. The stunt provoked a heated debate in the Czech Republic media (which is deftly worked into the film itself) but at the very least it got people talking about these issues (which, in my opinion, supercedes the 'meanness' of tricking a bunch of people into traveling to a grand opening).
What sent us off to see this film was the fact that our music teacher, Pavel, was wearing a Cesky Sen t-shirt during our first class. A couple of us had heard about the film, and asked him about his shirt, to which he nonchalantly replied, "Oh yes, that's my brother's film." Turns out his brother is one of the two students who made and 'starred' in the film, and this Wednesday they're coming in to discuss it with us. The Czech Republic is such a tiny place with such a tightly-knit artistic community, that apparently this happens all the time. Awesome. I expect I'll be writing more about this in the future--in fact, I emailed a professor of mine from BU (he's got a full-time position at Emerson now, actually) and he told me that I should write an article about the whole thing because there are some journals that might be interested. Yes!
Unfortunately I don't think it's available in the US, or will even be released there anytime soon, which is sad because given the recent success of Michael Moore's work as well as that Super-size Me movie, Cesky Sen is something I think would do very well. Y'all will just have to wait until I bring a copy back.
Then, on Saturday, we went back to Kino Světozor, which is a pretty great art-house cinema (their slogan is "Popcorn Free 100% Culture"), to see Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-up (1966). I'm not going to say much about it except that it's a great film and the cinematography is fucking brilliant in a rather subtle way and I love it (the first scene in the park especially). It was really good to finally see the thing all the way through, and on a big screen no less. More trips to Světozor are definitely going to happen.
Well, that's it for now. My next post will be very interesting I'm sure--I'm switching host families. My current one and I are just not a good match at all. But I don't have time to get into it right now, as I'm actually on my way to found out when this whole thing is going down. I've also got a really fucking cool music post in the pipeline, and tons of other shit is going down--films, Lanterna Magika, and hopefully that Psychic TV show, which is on the same night as Lanterna Magika, but we're gonna make it work goddamn it!
posted by anonymous listener at 8:58 AM
1 Comments:
we saw cesky sen as well. interesting, i thought. we talked to executive producer peter cernak, if i remember correctly, which i often do not. he gave out pirated copies of the dvd and said they were talking about getting the film shown in the states sometime winterish (again, if i remember correctly).
tata
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