• The Ear (Ucho)

8/21/23 (Mon)

Karel Kachyňa’s 1970 work, co-written by him with his long-time activist screen partner Jan Procházka based on the latter’s story, came at the wrong end of the Soviet invasion that put a halt to the Prague Spring and, consequently, to the subversive films of the Czech New Wave. Procházka’s good relations with the president were no help in preventing this film from being banned even before its release. It did not appear in public until 1989; it was entered into competition for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival the next year.

A bickering couple right out of Virginia Woolf, here the deputy minister of construction and his floozy wife, return from a party function late at night to find strange happenings at their home. Continue reading →