A Delicate Balance: The Films of Jirí Menzel

Seven Warm, Observant, Bittersweet Comedies by a Maestro of the Czech New Wave

"Jirí Menzel claims that his famous humor is simply Czech humor; Czechs, he once said, 'see the other side of everything and are quick to spot a paradox. We can always see Mr. Brezhnev is his underwear.' But as a filmmaker, an actor, and a stage director, Menzel is a humorist and humanist whose self-deprecating wit underplays the influence of his delicate tragicomedies of the little man. As Yvette Biro has written, 'Menzel's philosophical comedies owe much to the modern Czech literary tradition. But his films reveal a unique and independent personality, a universe all his own.' Menzel specialized in getting under the fingernails of the authorities, but unlike his fellow graduates of the Czech film school FAMU (Jan Nemec, Milos Forman, Ivan Passer et al), he renounced cynicism. 'We all know life is cruel and sad,' he said. 'What's the point of demonstrating this in films? Let us show we're brave by laughing at life.' But the 'reconciliation' he finds in laughter is not simplistic, nor does it come cheap. One his most satisfyingly funny films, Capricious Summer, is an adaptation of a novel by Vladislav Vancura, who was executed by the Nazis. Menzel and frequent literary collaborator Bohumil Hrabal made Larks on a String in 1969 to welcome the Prague Spring with eccentric humor at the expense of the heavy fifties, only to find that, in the surreal world of Czechs and balances, the fifties had returned with a vengeance. In the ensuing six years in which he was not allowed to make films, Menzel made theatre, and made do. He returned to filmmaking in 1975, his characteristic gentle wit undaunted."
-- Judy Bloch, Pacific Film Archive

Acknowledgements: This retrospective was made possible through the Cooperation of the National Film Archive in Prague and Portobello Pictures in London, as well as through the Czech Center New York. Our thanks to Vladimír Opela in Prague and Irena Kovárová in New York.

Closely Watched Trains (Ostøe sledované vlaky)
Czechoslovakia 1966. Director: Jirí Menzel
Cast: Václav Neckáø, Jitka Bendová, Vladimír Valenta, Libuse Havelková
One of cinema's auspicious debuts, Jirí Menzel's much-loved first feature won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1967, the second-ever Czech film so honoured (Jan Kadar's The Shop on Main Street was the first), and remains a masterpiece of warm, well-observed, bittersweet, humanist filmmaking. Based on a well-known ironic novel by Bohumil Hrabal, who co-wrote the script (and who became a frequent Menzel collaborator), Closely Watched Trains is set at a remote country rail station during the Nazi occupation. It tells of the awkward coming of age of shy adolescent Milos (Václav Neckáø), a trainee rail guard whose biggest concern, amidst the turbulence of the war and resistance raging around him, is how to lose his virginity. Milos's funny, sad, anti-heroic tale becomes the stuff of Menzel's "offbeat, bittersweet poetry... No one has been able to portray the boredom, the void of everyday life in a small town's railway station, the longing for exciting adventures, the gentle eroticism of adolescence as Menzel did, in sharp contrast to the presence of the brutal war" (Yvette Biro). "Comic, tragic, romantic and realistic, it is a film of great warmth and honesty, photographed in wonderfully stark black and white and cast with an exceptional group of actors" (James Monaco). B&W, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 90 mins.

Friday, February 4 7:30 pm
Sunday, February 6 9:15 pm

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Capricious Summer (Rozmarné léto)
Czechoslovakia 1967. Director: Jirí Menzel
Cast: Jana Drchalová, Rudolf Hrusínsky, Vlastimil Brodsky, Frantisek Øehák
An observant, affectionate, bittersweet comedy about lost youth, Capricious Summer was Jirí Menzel's first-rate follow-up to the Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains, his celebrated first feature. Based on an acclaimed comic novel by Vladislav Vancura, Capricious Summer is set in a sleepy provincial town, where the autumnal libidos of three middle-aged friends - a priest, a retired army officer, and a swimming pool proprietor -- are set soaring by the arrival of beautiful young Anna (Jana Drchalová), assistant to an itinerant circus tightrope walker (played by Menzel himself, who learned to walk tightrope for the role). "Menzel's evocation of place and mood, of soft summer days threatened by winter, of regret for lost youth and opportunity, of hope for things to come, is perfection" (Tom Milne, Time Out). The film won the Grand Prize at Karlovy Vary in 1967. Colour, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 74 mins.

Friday, February 4 9:15 pm
Saturday, February 5 7:30 pm

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Vancouver Premiere!
Larks on a String (Skrivánci na niti)
Czechoslovakia 1969. Director: Jirí Menzel
Cast: Rudolf Hrusínsky, Václav Neckáø, Jitka Zelenohorská
Larks on a String was long rumoured to be one of Czech master Jirí Menzel's very finest works, but was long unseen. Begun during the Prague Spring but finished after the 1968 Soviet invasion, this gently comic anti-communist satire was banned by the hard-line authorities in 1969 and not released until 1990, when it shared the Golden Bear at Berlin. (Menzel himself was unable to work in film again until 1975). Adapted from a collection of stories by Menzel favourite Bohumil Hrabal, the film is set in the 1950s in the town of Kladno, were a group of "bourgeois dissidents," including a philosophy professor, a librarian, a saxophonist, and a public prosecutor, have been forced to undergo "re-education" -- by working on a factory scrap heap. A detail of female political prisoners labours nearby, with the sexual tension between the two groups making for some surprisingly cheerful humour, and Menzel's mirthful sympathies extending to both oppressor and oppressed. "Menzel and Hrabal's most trenchant satire, set literally upon the scrap heap of Czech culture in the early 1950s . . . An absurdist setting reminiscent of Svankmajer or Boro, this is a bleak wonderland, an island of love and small philosophies in a world where typewriters and films and souls are relegated to the heap like so much junk, waiting to be rescued, or melted down." (Judy Bloch, Pacific Film Archive). Colour, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 90 mins.

Saturday, February 5 9:00 pm
Sunday, February 6 7:30 pm

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Cutting It Short (Postriziny)
Czechoslovakia 1980. Director: Jirí Menzel
Cast: Madga Vasáryová, Jirí Schmitzer, Jaromír Hanzlík, Rudolf Hrusínsky
"The best film to emerge from Czechoslovakia over more than a decade" (Variety), Jirí Menzel's lyrical Cutting It Short is a witty, winsome, nostalgic comedy that recalls his earlier Capricious Summer. Based on a popular novella by Bohumil Hrabal (Menzel's Closely Watched Trains and Larks on a String were also Hrabal adaptations), Cutting It Short is set in a small provincial town just prior to World War I, where shy, straight-laced Francin (Jirí Schmitzer) manages the local brewery -- and tries, less successfully, to manage the exuberance of his spirited, sensuous wife Marja (Madga Vasáryová), who mesmerizes everyone who comes within her orbit. The film's Jacques Tati-like antics revolve around the arrival of Francin's uncouth brother, and an inspection by the brewery's bureaucratic board of directors. "Menzel's best film since Capricious Summer... deserves to be ranked among the great film comedies. Beautifully constructed but balanced by some typically Hrabalian vulgarity, it pays explicit homage to the tradition of Chaplin, Lupino Lane, and the Keystone Cops" (Peter Hames). "A gorgeous performance from Vasáryová" (Tom Milne). "Funny and affectionate... Menzel brings the full measure of his gifts for warmth, humour, and satirical observation" (Bloomsbury). Colour, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 93 mins.

Thursday, February 10 7:30 pm
Saturday, February 12 9:30 pm

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Festival of the Snowdrops (Slavnosti snezenek)
Czechoslovakia 1983. Director: Jirí Menzel
Cast: Rudolf Hrusínsky, Jaromír Hanzlík, Jirí Schmitzer, Petr Cepek
Jirí Menzel followed up on the great success of 1980's Cutting It Short with yet another Bohumil Hrabal adaptation -- his fourth feature based on the noted Czech author's writings, this time a collection of short stories about Hrabal's beloved village of Kersko, in the Bohemian forests near Prague. Festival of the Snowdrops is an eccentric, lusty, warmly observant work in the tradition of the best Czech comedies, from Forman's The Fireman's Ball to Menzel's own Capricious Summer. It unfolds as a series of incidents and episodes that gradually resolve themselves into an absurdist plot. When a wild boar from one village rampages into a classroom of a neighbouring town, and is shot dead before teacher and students, a heated argument ensues between the hunting clubs of the two communities over who owns the prized trophy. The teacher manages to negotiate a compromise, a celebratory dinner for both villages at a local pub, but the evening's carousing inevitably leads to yet more conflicts."A beautiful portrait of the simple local villagers emerges, endowed with Hrabal's rich dialogue and Menzel's breadth of vision" (Czech Center, New York). "A warming human comedy on man's foibles, a universal tale that surely would have tickled the funnybone of Aristophanes or Chaucer" (Variety). Colour, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 90 mins.

Thursday, February 10 9:20 pm
Sunday, February 13 7:30 pm

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My Sweet Little Village (Vesnicko má støedisková)
Czechoslovakia 1985. Director: Jirí Menzel
Cast: Marian Labuda, JÉnos BÉn, Rudolf Hrusínsky, Petr Èepek
Nominated for the foreign film Academy Award in 1986, Jirí Menzel's follow-up to Cutting It Short and Festival of the Snowdrops completed an affectionate, informal trilogy on village life, and become one of Czechoslovakia's biggest-ever box-office hits. Written by Zdenek Sverák (who later scripted and starred in the Oscar-winning Kolya), My Sweet Little Village pokes warm-hearted fun at a gallery of eccentrics and oddballs living in a rural cooperative. It focuses on tall, slim Otik, the simple-minded, Dumbo-eared "village idiot," who is more hindrance than help to short, stout Pavek, his long-suffering workmate and pal. The plot has a Party official setting his scheming sights on poor Otik's cottage. The non-stop gags include a diverting, "must-see" Romanian film; American movies introduced on T.V. with the warning that they "mirror a bourgeois society dedicated to the power of the dollar"; approving discussions of the Western craze for the bra-less look; and a great turn by favourite Menzel actor Rudolf Hrusínsky as an accident-prone doctor. "Menzel directs a good-natured comedy... The optimism, if indulgent, is infectious, and the Laurel and Hardski relationship is ultimately moving" (Time Out). Colour, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 98 mins.

Friday, February 11 7:30 pm
Sunday, February 13 9:15 pm

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Vancouver Premiere!
The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (Zivot a neobycejná dobrodruzství vojáka Ivana Conkina)
Czech Republic/Russia/Great Britain 1994. Director: Jirí Menzel
Cast: Gennady Nazarov, Zoya Buryak, Vladimir Ilyin, Valeri Zolotukhin
"Smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the same way as Pasternak and Solzhenitzyn's books had been -- via the YMCA in Paris -- Vladimir Voinovich's legendary comic novel was first published in the West in 1969. The New York Times called it "The Soviet Catch-22, as written by a latter-day Gogol." Ridiculing the Party, the KGB, the Red Army, and the entire bureaucracy of the Soviet Union, the book's liberating power of laughter earned it a 20-year ban, and its author was stripped of his citizenship and sent into exile. A long effort to bring Voinovich's humor to the screen has paid off in this irresistible film, directed by Czech master Jirí Menzel, who brings his gently humorous touch -- knowing and pointed, but without sarcasm -- to this tale of the triumph of Chonkin, a simple soldier. Amidst the chaos of 1941 Russia he is sent to guard a downed biplane in the remote village of Red End ("Dead End" in pre-Bolshevik days). Forgotten by his superiors as World War II breaks out, Chonkin becomes the center of a chain of hilarious misunderstandings, which escalate until a grotesque and quite successful comic finale" (San Francisco I.F.F.). Colour, 35mm, in Russian with English subtitles. 106 mins.

Friday, February 11 9:25 pm
Saturday, February 12 7:30 pm

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