Milan Kundera, whose 1984 novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” was turned into an Oscar-nominated film, has died at the age of 94.
Kundera died Tuesday in Paris after a long illness, Jindra Pavelková, a representative of the Moravian Library, the Czech library housing his personal collection, told Variety Wednesday.
“Milan Kundera was a writer who reached whole generations of readers across all continents and achieved global fame,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said. “He leaves behind not only notable fiction, but also significant essay work.”
The 1988 film adaptation of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” was directed by Philip Kaufman and starred Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche. Jean-Claude Carrière and Kaufman were Oscar nominated for adapted screenplay, and Sven Nykvist was Oscar nominated for cinematography.
Other films based on his writing include 1965’s “Nobody Will Laugh,” directed by Hynek Bocan, which won the Grand Prize at Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival, 1969’s “The Joke,...
Kundera died Tuesday in Paris after a long illness, Jindra Pavelková, a representative of the Moravian Library, the Czech library housing his personal collection, told Variety Wednesday.
“Milan Kundera was a writer who reached whole generations of readers across all continents and achieved global fame,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said. “He leaves behind not only notable fiction, but also significant essay work.”
The 1988 film adaptation of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” was directed by Philip Kaufman and starred Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche. Jean-Claude Carrière and Kaufman were Oscar nominated for adapted screenplay, and Sven Nykvist was Oscar nominated for cinematography.
Other films based on his writing include 1965’s “Nobody Will Laugh,” directed by Hynek Bocan, which won the Grand Prize at Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival, 1969’s “The Joke,...
- 7/12/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Czech-born French writer Milan Kundera, author of the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has died aged 94, according to Czech media and sources close to the writer.
Kundera was born in Czechoslovakia in 1929 and was expelled multiple times from the Communist party for reformist views and “anti-party activities”.
He was peripherally involved in the 1968 Prague Spring, the brief period of reformist activities that were crushed by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
He went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979 and he was granted Czech citizenship in 2019.
His first novel, an anti-Communist tale called The Joke, was published in 1967 and was adapted into a 1969 feature by Jaromil Jires. The film played at San Sebastian, New York and Locarno.
Kundera, who rarely gave interviews, was best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which takes place mainly in Prague in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Kundera was born in Czechoslovakia in 1929 and was expelled multiple times from the Communist party for reformist views and “anti-party activities”.
He was peripherally involved in the 1968 Prague Spring, the brief period of reformist activities that were crushed by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
He went into exile in France in 1975, acquiring citizenship in 1981. His Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979 and he was granted Czech citizenship in 2019.
His first novel, an anti-Communist tale called The Joke, was published in 1967 and was adapted into a 1969 feature by Jaromil Jires. The film played at San Sebastian, New York and Locarno.
Kundera, who rarely gave interviews, was best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which takes place mainly in Prague in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
- 7/12/2023
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Milan Kundera’s first novel, “The Joke,” won him critical praise and set the tone for a robust career in the spring of 1967, debuting just in time to catch the rising tide of freedom of expression that would reach its peak with the Prague Spring movement just a year later. Jaromil Jires crafted a screen adaptation of the book, in collaboration with the writer, which became one of the iconic films of the Czech New Wave.
The digital restoration of the film, part of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s program of preserving and promoting classic films, alongside the Czech National Film Archive, brings a crisp new copy of the film to audiences this summer. The chance to experience “The Joke” in a pristine state after extensive work by Prague post house Upp and studio Soundsquare has been a long-time coming.
When the Soviet crackdown, known as Normalization, rolled into...
The digital restoration of the film, part of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s program of preserving and promoting classic films, alongside the Czech National Film Archive, brings a crisp new copy of the film to audiences this summer. The chance to experience “The Joke” in a pristine state after extensive work by Prague post house Upp and studio Soundsquare has been a long-time coming.
When the Soviet crackdown, known as Normalization, rolled into...
- 7/2/2022
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Stars: Jaroslava Schallerová, Helena Anýzová, Petr Kopriva, Jirí Prýmek, Jan Klusák, Libuse Komancová, Karel Engel, Alena Stojáková, Otto Hradecký | Written and Directed by Jaromil Jires
A Czechoslovakian cult classic, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, based on a novel written by the poet, Vitezslav Nezval, was adapted to the screen and directed by Jaromil Jires, a film-maker associated mostly with his prominence during the Czech New-Wave of cinema in the 60’s. This, probably his seminal film, has now found a home on Blu-ray in the UK thanks to Second Run (the film is out there on Criterion in the States too), and I was happy to sit down again and experience this masterpiece of Czech art cinema for the first time in a few years.
Ethereal from the outset, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders almost resembles a 60’s experimental film made by students, the opening credits look amateur in a way,...
A Czechoslovakian cult classic, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, based on a novel written by the poet, Vitezslav Nezval, was adapted to the screen and directed by Jaromil Jires, a film-maker associated mostly with his prominence during the Czech New-Wave of cinema in the 60’s. This, probably his seminal film, has now found a home on Blu-ray in the UK thanks to Second Run (the film is out there on Criterion in the States too), and I was happy to sit down again and experience this masterpiece of Czech art cinema for the first time in a few years.
Ethereal from the outset, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders almost resembles a 60’s experimental film made by students, the opening credits look amateur in a way,...
- 2/24/2020
- by Chris Cummings
- Nerdly
Above: Us one sheet for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. Two weeks ago, as the 57th New York Film Festival kicked off, I griped about the uninspiring quality of the posters for the films in the festival’s main slate. 50 years ago it was a very different story. The posters I have found for the 19 films in the 1969 main selection make up a dazzling collection of illustration and forward thinking graphic design, even, or especially, the type-only poster for the only studio film in the festival: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice which was the opening night film on September 16 (notably a Tuesday evening).Of course, many of these posters might have been made months or even a year after the festival, since we’re looking back with half a century of hindsight, and many of this year’s designs will no doubt be updated, but this was also the era in which...
- 10/11/2019
- MUBI
Věra Chytilová shooting Time Is RelentlessIn Something Different (1963), housewife Vera has had it with her emotionally unavailable husband, exhausting chores, and child-rearing, so she starts an affair. A broken woman, she bursts into sporadic fits of giggling, scaring both men in her life. Prefiguring to some extent Alain Tanner's La salamandre, this laughter lifts the veil over the heroine's existential crisis, one so reluctant to be put into words and yet occasionally susceptible to movie images. Over the almost 50-year span of her career, we've heard Věra Chytilová's laugh so many times that it deserves to be catalogued. Daisies (1966) gave the censors plenty of reasons to ban it, but the derisive cackling of two girls at war with common sense would've sufficed. You can hear the sound as early as her student film Caterwauling (1960), made at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Famu). There,...
- 3/8/2019
- MUBI
Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode features panel conversations and 1:1 interviews offering insights on movies that premiered in a particular season of a year in the past, which were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint. In this episode, David is joined by Martin Kessler, Jordan Essoe, Doug McCambridge, Jason Beamish and Trevor Berrett to discuss six titles from the Winter of 1969: Jaromil Jires’s The Joke, Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, Wim Winders’s Silver City Revisited, Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, Luis Bunuel’s The Milky Way and Pierre Etaix’s Le Grand Amour.
Episode Time Markers: Introduction: 0:00:00 – 0:09:47 The Joke: 0:09:48 – 0:36:30 Silver City Revisited: 0:36:31 – 0:54:30 The Cremator: 0:54:31 – 1:17:...
Episode Time Markers: Introduction: 0:00:00 – 0:09:47 The Joke: 0:09:48 – 0:36:30 Silver City Revisited: 0:36:31 – 0:54:30 The Cremator: 0:54:31 – 1:17:...
- 9/20/2017
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Special mention: Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Genre: Documentary
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshows to dramatized reenactments of alleged real-life events. Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen, and based partly on Christensen’s study of the Malleus Maleficarum, Häxan is a fine examination of how superstition and the misunderstanding of mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. At the time, it was the most expensive Scandinavian film ever made, costing nearly 2 million Swedish krona. Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered, at that time, graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. Depending on which version you’re watching, the commentary is...
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Genre: Documentary
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshows to dramatized reenactments of alleged real-life events. Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen, and based partly on Christensen’s study of the Malleus Maleficarum, Häxan is a fine examination of how superstition and the misunderstanding of mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. At the time, it was the most expensive Scandinavian film ever made, costing nearly 2 million Swedish krona. Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered, at that time, graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. Depending on which version you’re watching, the commentary is...
- 10/27/2015
- by Ricky Fernandes
- SoundOnSight
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor conclude their two-part discussion of Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave.
About the films:
Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fruitful, fascinating, and radical. With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of fearless directors—including eventual Oscar winners Miloš Forman and Ján Kadár—began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state. A defining work was the 1966 omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which introduced five of the movement’s essential voices: Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jiří Menzel,...
About the films:
Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fruitful, fascinating, and radical. With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of fearless directors—including eventual Oscar winners Miloš Forman and Ján Kadár—began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state. A defining work was the 1966 omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which introduced five of the movement’s essential voices: Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jiří Menzel,...
- 8/4/2015
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Above: Alternative poster for Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, Australia/USA, 2015). Artist: Signalstarr.Movie Poster of the Week was on vacation for the past few weeks and for the first time in three and a half years I took a break from posting a poster a day on Tumblr. Since getting back I have been posting the best new posters that I missed while I was away, one of which—the teaser for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight which was unveiled at Comic-Con last week—has racked up more likes in a single day than almost anything else I’ve posted in the past three months.The standout favorite of the past quarter however—with over 1400 likes and re-blogs to date—was this stunning alternative poster for Mad Max: Fury Road by the British artist known as Signalstarr, a.k.a. Nick Stewart Hoyle. As a rule I...
- 7/24/2015
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) is an obscure fantasia from the fading days of the Czech New Wave. One could argue that its obscurity was richly deserved and that it unfortunately may end now with the release of this new Criterion Blu-ray. The film is a bewildering, at times amateurish, amalgam of the very worst instincts of David Hamilton and Ken Russell mixed with a barrage of B movie horror cliches. And those are some of the best scenes. In between there’s much fret over some magic necklace or earrings or something, and Valerie’s grandparents and/or parents – it’s hard to tell them apart – and a cloaked figure who flits about looking like a hybrid of Nosferatu and Darth Vader. Sorry this synopsis is not more coherent, but this reviewer’s eyes had glazed over long before the film reached its conclusion.
On the other hand,...
On the other hand,...
- 7/7/2015
- by David Anderson
- IONCINEMA.com
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Written by Jaromil Jires and Ester Krumbachová
Directed by Jaromil Jireš
Czechoslovakia, 1970
Beginning with Jaroslava Schallerová’s glance directly into the camera, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders instantly and insistently unravels in playful nods of incongruous and intentionally self-conscious stylization. Directed by Jaromil Jireš, this 1970 feature, in classic art film tradition, takes a basic narrative with reasonably standard character types and turns the whole thing topsy-turvy via stunning imagery, a proliferation of ambiguous symbolism, and a structure that leads to places quite unexpected, if certain sequences lead anywhere at all. It certainly is a wondrous week for young Valerie, and the film itself is equally astounding.
After Eaglet (Petr Kopriva) steals Valerie’s (Schallerová) magical earrings, apparently at the behest of the Constable (Jirí Prýmek), otherwise referred to/existing as the malicious Polecat, a vampire-type monster who terrorizes a small Czech town, an...
Written by Jaromil Jires and Ester Krumbachová
Directed by Jaromil Jireš
Czechoslovakia, 1970
Beginning with Jaroslava Schallerová’s glance directly into the camera, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders instantly and insistently unravels in playful nods of incongruous and intentionally self-conscious stylization. Directed by Jaromil Jireš, this 1970 feature, in classic art film tradition, takes a basic narrative with reasonably standard character types and turns the whole thing topsy-turvy via stunning imagery, a proliferation of ambiguous symbolism, and a structure that leads to places quite unexpected, if certain sequences lead anywhere at all. It certainly is a wondrous week for young Valerie, and the film itself is equally astounding.
After Eaglet (Petr Kopriva) steals Valerie’s (Schallerová) magical earrings, apparently at the behest of the Constable (Jirí Prýmek), otherwise referred to/existing as the malicious Polecat, a vampire-type monster who terrorizes a small Czech town, an...
- 7/7/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Though the Czech New Wave of the sixties was not as addicted to anthology films as the Italians (any major Italian director could have called a film Eight and a Half, since they all directed episodes at one time or another), they did make Pearls of the Night (1966), which showcased nearly all the major graduates of the national film school, Famu (a.k.a. the Kids from Famu): Vera Chytilová, Jaromil Jires, Jirí Menzel, Jan Nemec and Evald Schorm.Three years later, Schorm was back, collaborating with new chums Jirí Brdecka and Milos Makovec on a raunchy supernatural triptych, Prague Nights. An international traveller picks up a strange woman, determined to enjoy a night of illicit passion during his Czech stopover. Driven through a green-tinted sepia night in her vintage limo, he's told three tales of murder, lust and the supernatural, and, at the end, as in any Amicus...
- 4/2/2015
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time for one reason: the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. I am including documentaries, short films and mini series, only as special mentions – along with a few features that can qualify as horror, but barely do.
****
Special Mention:
Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft,...
****
Special Mention:
Häxan
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Denmark / Sweden, 1922
Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft,...
- 10/30/2013
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.
As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.
****
50: Thundercrack!
Directed by Curt McDowell
Written by George Kuchar
1975, USA
Thunderstruck! is by far the most obscure film you will find on this list. It is without a doubt one of the true landmarks of Underground cinema. With a screenplay by veteran underground film maker George Kuchar (story and characters by Mark Ellinger) and directed Curt McDowell (than student of Kuchar),
Thundercrack! is a work of a crazed genius.
As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.
****
50: Thundercrack!
Directed by Curt McDowell
Written by George Kuchar
1975, USA
Thunderstruck! is by far the most obscure film you will find on this list. It is without a doubt one of the true landmarks of Underground cinema. With a screenplay by veteran underground film maker George Kuchar (story and characters by Mark Ellinger) and directed Curt McDowell (than student of Kuchar),
Thundercrack! is a work of a crazed genius.
- 10/27/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
31 – Rosemary’s Baby
Directed by Roman Polanski
USA, 1968
Roman Polanski’s brilliant horror-thriller was nominated for two Oscars, winning Best Supporting Actress for Ruth Gordon. The director’s first American film, adapted from Ira Levin’s horror bestseller, is a spellbinding and twisted tale of Satanism and pregnancy. Supremely mounted, the film benefits from it’s strong atmosphere, apartment setting, eerie childlike score and polished production values by cinematographer William Fraker. The cast is brilliant, with Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes as the young couple playing opposite Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, the elderly neighbors. There is ominous tension in the film from first frame to last – the climax makes for one of the greatest endings of all time. Rarely has a film displayed such an uncompromising portrait of betrayal as this one. Career or marriage – which would you choose?
30 – Eraserhead
Directed by David Lynch
USA, 1977
Filmed intermittently over the course of a five-year period,...
Directed by Roman Polanski
USA, 1968
Roman Polanski’s brilliant horror-thriller was nominated for two Oscars, winning Best Supporting Actress for Ruth Gordon. The director’s first American film, adapted from Ira Levin’s horror bestseller, is a spellbinding and twisted tale of Satanism and pregnancy. Supremely mounted, the film benefits from it’s strong atmosphere, apartment setting, eerie childlike score and polished production values by cinematographer William Fraker. The cast is brilliant, with Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes as the young couple playing opposite Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer, the elderly neighbors. There is ominous tension in the film from first frame to last – the climax makes for one of the greatest endings of all time. Rarely has a film displayed such an uncompromising portrait of betrayal as this one. Career or marriage – which would you choose?
30 – Eraserhead
Directed by David Lynch
USA, 1977
Filmed intermittently over the course of a five-year period,...
- 10/29/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
25 – Halloween
Directed by John Carpenter
1978 – Us
A historical milestone that single-handedly shaped and altered the future of the entire genre. This seminal horror flick actually gets better with age; it’s downright transcendent and holds up with determination as an effective thriller that will always stand head and shoulders above the hundreds of imitators to come. Halloween had one hell of an influence on the entire film industry. You have to admire how Carpenter avoids explicit onscreen violence, and achieves a considerable power almost entirely through visual means, using its widescreen frame, expert hand-held camerawork, and terrifying foreground and background imagery.
24 – Black Christmas
Directed by Bob Clark
1974 – Canada
We never did find out who Billy was. Maybe it’s for the best, since they never made any sequels to Bob Clark’s seminal slasher film, a film which predates Carpenter’s Halloween by four years. Whereas Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released the same year,...
Directed by John Carpenter
1978 – Us
A historical milestone that single-handedly shaped and altered the future of the entire genre. This seminal horror flick actually gets better with age; it’s downright transcendent and holds up with determination as an effective thriller that will always stand head and shoulders above the hundreds of imitators to come. Halloween had one hell of an influence on the entire film industry. You have to admire how Carpenter avoids explicit onscreen violence, and achieves a considerable power almost entirely through visual means, using its widescreen frame, expert hand-held camerawork, and terrifying foreground and background imagery.
24 – Black Christmas
Directed by Bob Clark
1974 – Canada
We never did find out who Billy was. Maybe it’s for the best, since they never made any sequels to Bob Clark’s seminal slasher film, a film which predates Carpenter’s Halloween by four years. Whereas Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released the same year,...
- 10/28/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Note: This is the second article in this series of posts. Click here to see the first entry.
Every year I spend the majority of the month of October watching as many horror movies as I possibly can. So I decided to take it upon myself to list off the greatest horror movies ever made. I felt the need to break up the list into several categories. You see, usually when people ask me for recommendations of what horror films they should see, they still have some idea of what sub genre they are interested in watching. So as appose to having one big jumbled list, I’ve broken it down to help with those looking for recommendations in a specific area. Please Note: by the end of the month, the last entry in this series will include a list of what I think are without a doubt, the 31 greatest horror movies ever made.
Every year I spend the majority of the month of October watching as many horror movies as I possibly can. So I decided to take it upon myself to list off the greatest horror movies ever made. I felt the need to break up the list into several categories. You see, usually when people ask me for recommendations of what horror films they should see, they still have some idea of what sub genre they are interested in watching. So as appose to having one big jumbled list, I’ve broken it down to help with those looking for recommendations in a specific area. Please Note: by the end of the month, the last entry in this series will include a list of what I think are without a doubt, the 31 greatest horror movies ever made.
- 10/4/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
With vampires all the rage and a cinema smitten with mind-bending narratives built around the generic staple of the “unreliable narrator,” what better time is there to have a look at Czech director Jaromil Jires’ provocative 1970 cult film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders?
First coming to the world’s attention with his 1963 debut feature The Cry (exhibited at Cannes), a film of documentary realism and social criticism that displeased his native government, Jires found his talents put on hold as Czechoslovakia’s state-supported film industry turned down script after script he subsequently submitted for production. It wasn’t until 1968 that Jires reappeared on the scene with The Joke, adapted from the novel by Milan Kundera as an ambitious drama attacking totalitarianism.
I’ve yet to see either of those films, but based on what I discovered with Valerie, I’d be eager to explore more of his works. While...
First coming to the world’s attention with his 1963 debut feature The Cry (exhibited at Cannes), a film of documentary realism and social criticism that displeased his native government, Jires found his talents put on hold as Czechoslovakia’s state-supported film industry turned down script after script he subsequently submitted for production. It wasn’t until 1968 that Jires reappeared on the scene with The Joke, adapted from the novel by Milan Kundera as an ambitious drama attacking totalitarianism.
I’ve yet to see either of those films, but based on what I discovered with Valerie, I’d be eager to explore more of his works. While...
- 8/23/2010
- by Movies Unlimited
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN
1:15 p.m., 6:30 p.m.
Spanish actress Carmen Maura takes a serious turn in Belgian filmmaker Marion Hansel's tale of a population crisis in the near future. The crisis, in a turnabout, isn't of overpopulation but of human extinction -- threatened when all across Europe every pregnancy becomes overdue and, when labor is medically induced, every baby is stillborn.
Maura plays a TV newswoman impregnated during an impulsive coupling in a stalled elevator. When she finally announces her condition at work, she is given an assignment on overdue pregnancies as a lead-up to her own pregnancy leave.
However, just as she realizes how widespread and cataclysmic the condition is -- both for the mothers and the population at large -- she begins to carry on telepathic communications with her own child who announces that he and all the other unborn children are refusing to live in a world without hope.
The film has several effective moments, particularly involving mothers frantic over their condition, but the larger points are watered down by Hansel's lack of specifics over the precise nature of the unborn's depression and her confusion of "universal'' with "European.'' -- Henry Sheehan
BROTHER'S KEEPER
1:30 p.m., 6:45 p.m.
The system works. When viewing the absorbing documentary "Brother's Keeper, '' that's the feeling you get about a simple farmer arrested for taking the life of his older brother. Viewers will likely be divided pro and con about the guilt or innocence of one Delbert Ward, an illiterate dairyman farmer who was charged with snuffing out the life of his Brother William, and brought to trial for what many considered an act of mercy.
Kindly put, The Ward Brothers were a dim lot: The four of them farmed in Upstate New York for their entire lives and were considered, basically, the village lunatics by their agricultural brethren. They were slovenly and kept pretty much to themselves, living together in a decrepit shack with no plumbing.
On the morning of June 6, 1990, one of the "boys'' was found dead in his bed. The coroner's report said the cause was suffocation.
Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky trace this strange human drama in its public unfoldings. We see a real-life trial told in its essential terms as Delbert Ward is brought to justice for what community leaders deemed, at worst, a mercy killing.
Skillfully juxtaposing private revelations with public documents, co-directors Berlinger and Sinofsky have created a mesmerizing portrait of the American justice system and revealed an insight into this country's nature -- throughout, there is the feeling that people take care of one another, and neither laws nor outsiders can quell inherent qualities of decency. -- Duane Byrge
GROWN-UPS
1:45 p.m., 7 p.m.
The social and the personal get all bound up -- make that messed up -- in this 1980 telefilm by Mike Leigh ("Life Is Sweet'') which builds from scenes of routine day-to-day interactions to a climax of calamitously unwelcome class interaction.
A young working-class couple (Phillip Davis and Lesley Manville) have moved into their own home, a comfortable, if cramped, semi-detached row house. Their hoped-for privacy is interrupted more or less continuously by the wife's sister (Janine Duvitski), an unmarried woman well on her way to spinsterhood, who is forever dropping over for endless cups of tea.
As it turns out, the young couple have the last state-subsidized "council house'' on the street; not only do the next-door couple own their own, but the husband turns out to have been the high school teacher of his new neighbors. This leads to cautious, reluctant hellos, which burst into convulsive, invasive intimacy when Duvitski, told she's not wanted as a guest anymore, has an attack of hysteria and pulls the neighbors into the family squabbles.
The film manages to be understanding towards some, though far from all, of the characters without ever being sympathetic for the moment. Leigh -- as he was doing in all of his films of this period -- ruthlessly exposes what he apparently believes is the inherent nastiness and philistinism of most of the English. -- Henry Sheehan
LABYRINTH
4 p.m., 9:15 p.m.
A notebook film built around the musings of a film director -- played by Maximilian Schell -- planning to make a biographical feature about Franz Kafka. As Schell's fictional filmmaker ponders various books and papers, or gazes out his Prague hotel window at a Jewish cemetary, actual co-writer/director Jaromil Jires cuts to dramatized portions of the life of Kafka (Christopher Chaplin), particularly his largely unrealized romantic life and an encounter with the police, re-created scenes of Prague's Jewish history, and even a pair of film versions of the Golem legend, which was set in Prague.
As the action progresses, it focuses increasingly on Kafka's Jewishness, the rise of Nazism and the death of his family in concentration camps after his own untimely passing. Jires does a good job of emphasizing Kafka's role as a social prophet, rather than as a purely personal and hallucinatory writer -- without disserving the latter. But like his fictional creation, he never does quite come up with a format that comfortably encloses all the points he wants to make while actually bringing us close to Kafka the man. -- Henry Sheehan
THE STRANGER
4:15 p.m., 9:30 p.m.
Sadly, "The Stranger'' lacks much of the charm and substance of Satyajit Ray's previous films. There are glimpses of his former mastery, and a snippet or two of biting humor, but for the most part this film is a tedious diatribe with almost no movement at all. It's literally a sleeper.
Not based on Camus' novel, this film centers around a pending visit from an uncle not heard from for 35 years. His niece, Anila Bose (Mamata Shankar), is excited at seeing the uncle she barely remembers. Her naturally suspicious husband, Sudhindra (Deepankar De), however, distrusts the man even before meeting him. He tells his wife he needs proof before he'll accept the man's claim to be her uncle.
Finally, this relative "stranger, '' Manomohan Mitra (Utpal Dutt), arrives and immediately charms Anila and her son, Satyaki (Bikram Bhattacharya). But even after producing his passport, Mitra assures Sudhindra that it could be a fake and that Sudhindra shouldn't believe him so easily. Mitra plays on Sudhindra's cynical nature, causing his host to doubt his own doubts.
It's a cute setup, but then things quickly deteriorate as Mitra is forced to enter into a L-O-N-G debate about religion, science, technology and cannibalism.
The film comes to an almost complete standstill, and it becomes a struggle to make it to the finish.
One should be kind to strangers, but chances are history will be kinder to Ray's other, and more approachable, films (HR 5/22). -- Jeff Menell
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
1:15 p.m., 6:30 p.m.
Spanish actress Carmen Maura takes a serious turn in Belgian filmmaker Marion Hansel's tale of a population crisis in the near future. The crisis, in a turnabout, isn't of overpopulation but of human extinction -- threatened when all across Europe every pregnancy becomes overdue and, when labor is medically induced, every baby is stillborn.
Maura plays a TV newswoman impregnated during an impulsive coupling in a stalled elevator. When she finally announces her condition at work, she is given an assignment on overdue pregnancies as a lead-up to her own pregnancy leave.
However, just as she realizes how widespread and cataclysmic the condition is -- both for the mothers and the population at large -- she begins to carry on telepathic communications with her own child who announces that he and all the other unborn children are refusing to live in a world without hope.
The film has several effective moments, particularly involving mothers frantic over their condition, but the larger points are watered down by Hansel's lack of specifics over the precise nature of the unborn's depression and her confusion of "universal'' with "European.'' -- Henry Sheehan
BROTHER'S KEEPER
1:30 p.m., 6:45 p.m.
The system works. When viewing the absorbing documentary "Brother's Keeper, '' that's the feeling you get about a simple farmer arrested for taking the life of his older brother. Viewers will likely be divided pro and con about the guilt or innocence of one Delbert Ward, an illiterate dairyman farmer who was charged with snuffing out the life of his Brother William, and brought to trial for what many considered an act of mercy.
Kindly put, The Ward Brothers were a dim lot: The four of them farmed in Upstate New York for their entire lives and were considered, basically, the village lunatics by their agricultural brethren. They were slovenly and kept pretty much to themselves, living together in a decrepit shack with no plumbing.
On the morning of June 6, 1990, one of the "boys'' was found dead in his bed. The coroner's report said the cause was suffocation.
Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky trace this strange human drama in its public unfoldings. We see a real-life trial told in its essential terms as Delbert Ward is brought to justice for what community leaders deemed, at worst, a mercy killing.
Skillfully juxtaposing private revelations with public documents, co-directors Berlinger and Sinofsky have created a mesmerizing portrait of the American justice system and revealed an insight into this country's nature -- throughout, there is the feeling that people take care of one another, and neither laws nor outsiders can quell inherent qualities of decency. -- Duane Byrge
GROWN-UPS
1:45 p.m., 7 p.m.
The social and the personal get all bound up -- make that messed up -- in this 1980 telefilm by Mike Leigh ("Life Is Sweet'') which builds from scenes of routine day-to-day interactions to a climax of calamitously unwelcome class interaction.
A young working-class couple (Phillip Davis and Lesley Manville) have moved into their own home, a comfortable, if cramped, semi-detached row house. Their hoped-for privacy is interrupted more or less continuously by the wife's sister (Janine Duvitski), an unmarried woman well on her way to spinsterhood, who is forever dropping over for endless cups of tea.
As it turns out, the young couple have the last state-subsidized "council house'' on the street; not only do the next-door couple own their own, but the husband turns out to have been the high school teacher of his new neighbors. This leads to cautious, reluctant hellos, which burst into convulsive, invasive intimacy when Duvitski, told she's not wanted as a guest anymore, has an attack of hysteria and pulls the neighbors into the family squabbles.
The film manages to be understanding towards some, though far from all, of the characters without ever being sympathetic for the moment. Leigh -- as he was doing in all of his films of this period -- ruthlessly exposes what he apparently believes is the inherent nastiness and philistinism of most of the English. -- Henry Sheehan
LABYRINTH
4 p.m., 9:15 p.m.
A notebook film built around the musings of a film director -- played by Maximilian Schell -- planning to make a biographical feature about Franz Kafka. As Schell's fictional filmmaker ponders various books and papers, or gazes out his Prague hotel window at a Jewish cemetary, actual co-writer/director Jaromil Jires cuts to dramatized portions of the life of Kafka (Christopher Chaplin), particularly his largely unrealized romantic life and an encounter with the police, re-created scenes of Prague's Jewish history, and even a pair of film versions of the Golem legend, which was set in Prague.
As the action progresses, it focuses increasingly on Kafka's Jewishness, the rise of Nazism and the death of his family in concentration camps after his own untimely passing. Jires does a good job of emphasizing Kafka's role as a social prophet, rather than as a purely personal and hallucinatory writer -- without disserving the latter. But like his fictional creation, he never does quite come up with a format that comfortably encloses all the points he wants to make while actually bringing us close to Kafka the man. -- Henry Sheehan
THE STRANGER
4:15 p.m., 9:30 p.m.
Sadly, "The Stranger'' lacks much of the charm and substance of Satyajit Ray's previous films. There are glimpses of his former mastery, and a snippet or two of biting humor, but for the most part this film is a tedious diatribe with almost no movement at all. It's literally a sleeper.
Not based on Camus' novel, this film centers around a pending visit from an uncle not heard from for 35 years. His niece, Anila Bose (Mamata Shankar), is excited at seeing the uncle she barely remembers. Her naturally suspicious husband, Sudhindra (Deepankar De), however, distrusts the man even before meeting him. He tells his wife he needs proof before he'll accept the man's claim to be her uncle.
Finally, this relative "stranger, '' Manomohan Mitra (Utpal Dutt), arrives and immediately charms Anila and her son, Satyaki (Bikram Bhattacharya). But even after producing his passport, Mitra assures Sudhindra that it could be a fake and that Sudhindra shouldn't believe him so easily. Mitra plays on Sudhindra's cynical nature, causing his host to doubt his own doubts.
It's a cute setup, but then things quickly deteriorate as Mitra is forced to enter into a L-O-N-G debate about religion, science, technology and cannibalism.
The film comes to an almost complete standstill, and it becomes a struggle to make it to the finish.
One should be kind to strangers, but chances are history will be kinder to Ray's other, and more approachable, films (HR 5/22). -- Jeff Menell
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 6/29/1992
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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