Word: films
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ball there is a beauty contest and a raffle and a fire. But nothing happens: an oversized peasant granny wins the beauty contest crown, no one wins the raffle, and no one is hurt in the fire. But you won't be disappointed by the eventlessness of this film...
...director, Milos Forman, appears in a film clip at the beginning of the movie to give an idea of what his film is about. He says that when it came out in Czechoslovakia, forty thousand firemen resigned, and in order to appease them he had to say that the firemen in the film were actually symbolic representations of society. But then, in a real comment about himself, he undercuts everything he has said by stating that the film is just about firemen. Forman presents a simple story that might easily be loaded with meaning--but he denies that...
...watch the film just for itself, without any greater meaning, and that is easy to do. The characters in the movie are all the kind of people you would never think twice about to understand. None will even remotely remind you of Julie Christie; and there are at least a half a dozen characters who absorb the role that John Wayne plays on the American screen...
...fact, on a deeper level Forman's film and his previous release, Loves of a Blonde, are so relaxed and unimposing that they offer a real contrast to contemporary cinematography. With no hero, no violent or explosive action, and no plastic characters with expressions of angst molded into their features, this portrait of Czech life is singular in its impact. Instead of extraordinary experience or bigger than life tragedy, there are pathetic vignettes about totally unexplained but quite believeable people. In place of the complete involvement of constructed suspense, there is the uneventful yet amusing commonplace. It is reality...
...short, Oratorio for Prague, also deserves notice. It is a compositon which, like a fine piece of music, flows in and out while it covers its subject--the nature of the Czechoslovakian character at the approach of the August invasion. The film is narrated with the simplicity of a Hemingway story, everything cut down to the essential facts. But the effect is tremendous because the camera work is excellent and the background music is good, while the mixing of the three elements--narration, film, and music--is perfect...