Getting back from seeing Toy Story 4, (2019-also reviewed)I felt like watching a Comedy before bed. Recently viewing a number of outstanding titles from Eastern Europe,I took a look at my download list and found one which sounded like it was worth Czech-ing out,which led to me meeting the white lady.
View on the film:
Inspired by the real Czech Folk tale the Perchta of Rozemberk, director Zdenek Podskalsky & cinematographer Frantisek Valert bring a kitsch Bewitched atmosphere to the glowing appearances of The White Lady,who casts spells, (which includes a funny gag involving freezing someone else in her painting) to improve the shortcomings in the economy and society of 1960's Czech, with stop/start camera pauses, and ghostly overlapped images tracking The White Lady walking through walls. Following The White Lady by keeping the film in a whimsical mood,Podskalsky picks up a satirical wand to burst the self-importance of the local Communist/Government in stylish, imposing upwards wide-shots on the locals in charge making grand, vapid speeches trying to come up with explanations for The White Lady.
Framing The White Lady as a unexplainable supernatural being, the screenplay by Karel Michal brilliantly takes the light fantasy and paints it with funny satirical flourishes brushed from the local Commie party attempting to place the "miracles" of White Lady into their designated, micro-managed boxes. While taking digs at the local bureaucracy,Michal refreshingly avoids a bitterness in the comedic tone, (the film later got banned from being shown during the Soviet Occupation) instead going for warm,folk-flavoured mishaps, as the local government ( which includes a hilarious Rudolf Hrusinsky as puffed-up predseda MNV) fumble to offer rational explanations for the improvements made by The White Lady.
View on the film:
Inspired by the real Czech Folk tale the Perchta of Rozemberk, director Zdenek Podskalsky & cinematographer Frantisek Valert bring a kitsch Bewitched atmosphere to the glowing appearances of The White Lady,who casts spells, (which includes a funny gag involving freezing someone else in her painting) to improve the shortcomings in the economy and society of 1960's Czech, with stop/start camera pauses, and ghostly overlapped images tracking The White Lady walking through walls. Following The White Lady by keeping the film in a whimsical mood,Podskalsky picks up a satirical wand to burst the self-importance of the local Communist/Government in stylish, imposing upwards wide-shots on the locals in charge making grand, vapid speeches trying to come up with explanations for The White Lady.
Framing The White Lady as a unexplainable supernatural being, the screenplay by Karel Michal brilliantly takes the light fantasy and paints it with funny satirical flourishes brushed from the local Commie party attempting to place the "miracles" of White Lady into their designated, micro-managed boxes. While taking digs at the local bureaucracy,Michal refreshingly avoids a bitterness in the comedic tone, (the film later got banned from being shown during the Soviet Occupation) instead going for warm,folk-flavoured mishaps, as the local government ( which includes a hilarious Rudolf Hrusinsky as puffed-up predseda MNV) fumble to offer rational explanations for the improvements made by The White Lady.