User Reviews

i saw this at a university art screening years ago and this is one of those rare glimpses into what one can only wonder as being one of many practically lost gems as i have never seen it available on video or screened ever again, yet this is a truly classic film. i sadly don't remember much of the plot, but this film is about the very real fear that the main character's home is bugged by state police (the ear in question). the black and white cinematography is great, but this film is all about tension. it deserves to be seen.

Like so many other films made in Eastern Europe in the 60s and 70s, I've longed to see this gem again. Once upon a time, back in the 80s, the UK's Channel 4 used to show all kinds of weird and wonderful films into the early hours, introducing this teenager (now 36) to a new and exciting world of international cinema.

This Czech classic (banned when Dubcek's regime was toppled in '69) concerns Ludvik, a top bureaucrat, and his wife, Anna, coming home one night from a reception to find their home has been bugged (during a period of political purging). The paranoia and sleepless night sets Lunvik and Aanna against each other, and the film finally shows what it took to 'get head' in a Stalinist regime.

The acute paranoia of daily life behind the Iron Curtain haunts a petty bureaucrat after he overhears an indiscreet remark at a party and becomes convinced his house is under government surveillance. Not surprisingly, the film spent over two decades in official limbo for daring to paint an unflattering portrait of Big Brother, showing the unseen influence of the State in a society where privilege is bought at the cost of privacy. The story begins where Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Conversation' left off, with the anxious civil servant and his equally suspicious wife trapped in a claustrophobic, dark comic nightmare of hidden microphones, tapped telephones, and invisible prying eyes, all the time wondering why the axe of political expedience is aimed at their innocent necks. The scenario would be absurd if it weren't so unsettling, and succeeds as both a disturbing parable of totalitarian oppression and a perversely entertaining black comedy.

This is an outstanding film, even by the standards of the Czech New Wave and a hundred times better that The Lives of Others which covers similar ground and won much acclaim and the Oscar for Foreign Film- which just confirms that the process of critical evaluation and film recognition is grossly unfair. The only reason Ucho is not on any Best Film lists is because is was made in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact I am also baffled that it every got made at all- I see how it got banned, but how did anyone get the studio to make it?

So what makes the film outstanding?...well everything really: Like all the Czech films of this period, it is great in every department.

Very good photography cutting from the pitch black house (shot entirely by candlight- no mean feat technically) to the crossly overlit party. At the party, there is a lot of virtuosic hand held camera and wide angle point of view shots as the man slips in uncut sequence from intense gossip huddle to gossip huddle. These shots alone are remarkable.

Acting- the core of the film is the disintegrating relationship between the man and his alcoholic wife – it's like Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff but with the added edge that every accusation she makes of him is overheard and potentially going to destroy them. It's very well acted.

Music and sound- typically of Czech films, a minimalist modern score with a very skillful post dub sound edit and mix

Script- beautifully nuanced...maybe drags a little in the middle, but it takes on a huge challenge and it does it very well

Most impressive feature, made at the end of the 60s, with Russian troops already on the streets, and not released until 1990. Shot in stark b/w, very much with the look we came to expect of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s but lacking that romantic twinkle. Here we are plunged in to the tale of a couple, she drunk, he concerned and trying to get back into their house after a lavish State function. We cut back and forth between the childlike but ominous activities at the official do and the struggle without lights or door keys at home. Much of the action between the husband and wife is shot in close-up and the discord and insult exchange is reminiscent of Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But things get worse as the real paranoia of who might be listening in to their conversations becomes more worrying. The omnipresent 'Ear' probes a considerable level of paranoia and we too become involved in a terrifying scenario which may or may not imaginary. Stunning ending, both happy and very sad.

It is very confusing! This movie was finished in 1970. To put 1990 it is so confusing. I thought it was another movie when looking for it just because of that date.

As other reviewers mentioned, there are indeed echoes of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", so this movie is WAOTVF + a political drama thriller. If that sounds interesting to you, watch it, it definitely won't disappoint you. It takes place in one night, it's very interesting, script is "tight", not a single second is wasted, good use of flashbacks and the acting is great.

It's not a masterpiece though like WAOTVW. Furthermore, i won't say that some things didn't make sense but i didn't get convinced entirely, i mean, during the last 20 minutes or so, a character was too hostile against the other and this character's transition was not so smooth. It didn't feel real, whereas during the first hour, it was like watching a real couple arguing with each other.

Despite these flaws, this is a good movie.

In a world where communism is really a threat to people's privacy, suspicion can drive you mad. Not only are you endlessly going over all your interactions with everyone you know, but you'll start to suspect those closest to you as well. This can build to a crescendo, until you actually find that you are being listened to. The lighting early on in this film is a great technique to build the suspense, which just adds to the insanity of communism.

I've seen this a couple of days ago in a tribute to Karel Kachyna who died recently. It is simply amazing. A well connected party/government (same thing) aparatchik and wife get driven back to their villa from a state reception to find their keys missing, house unlocked, without electricity, working telephone. They are being snippy with each other to start with, but when the man starts getting a little paranoid about the situation and starts getting little flashbacks from the reception (his immediate boss - a minister - and several colleagues are not present there, some ppl express mild suprise he is there himself, he is obviously not privy to certain hush-hush information, their chaffeur is missing and the place is full of "cliftons" i.e. secret police (get me a salmon, that's the red thing:)) they both really deteriorate into panic, accusssations, dragging long-forgotten things into open... The point is they know they are being listened to, but their safe haven are the toilets, the bathroom and the kitchen where the bugging devices are not ordinarily placed... but not for long I cannot imagine how did Mr. K imagine this thing would be released ever. It's a miracle it only got shelved and can remind us nowadays how bad it really was...It is one of the most thruthfull portrayals of uncertanities of love and life back then

Written by Jan Prochazka and directed by Karel Kachyna, probably the most talented tandem from the so called Czekoslovak new wave (far above the overrated Forman, Menzel and the useless Chytilova) If you are familiar with it, then you should know about this duo of screenwriter/director who created exceptional films such as Long live the republic-1965, Coach to Vienna-1966 or Night of of the Bride-1967.

Ucho/The ear, however, is their crowning achievment and in my view the greatest Czech film of the 60's (Dematy noci-1963, Holubice-1960, Spalovac mrtvol-1968 and Postava k podpirani-1963 would be close followers).

I concur with ''george-59-98991'' who sums up quite well the exeptionally high level of this film. It is of the highest order in every department: Direction and camera work/lighting, the disturbing original score, editing, acting (even down to 2d roles and extras). Pearless and astonishingly great in every department.

Forget about the obvious western paralels such as Nichols' ''Virginia Woolf'' Hollywood portrayal of a decaying /blasé couple portrayed by the no less blasé and overpayed Burton/Taylor. What we have here is an astonishing masterful description of the inner workings of a dictatorship and its effects (fear and paranoia coming up first) on the people within this system, and in this case a couple at the VERY heart of that system, hence the film being immediately shelved in the fall of 1969 in its country (then Czekoslovakia) and then released for the first time for the world to see at the 1990 Cannes film festival, which is now the reason for IMDB's misleading year of production of the film.

One of the 100 greatest films ever made. In all, this the ''Citizen Kane film'' of central Europe during comunism. Not to be missed.

"The ear" is a late production of the Czech new wave movement. It is politically more explicit that earlier films of this movement such as "Closely watched trains" (1966, Jiri Menzel) or "The Firemen's ball" (1967, Milos Forman).

It was made in 1970, that is after the invasion of the Warsaw pact in 1968. The film was prohibited by the communist censorship and only released in 1990.

"The ear" is situated in a hectic time for the Czech communist party. A couple of promiment members have been purged away. The main character is still on his job, but suspects that he is being eavesdropped.

A comparison with "Das leben der anderen" (2006, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) is obviious, but there are differences too.

In "Das leben der anderen" the eavesdropping is certain, in "The ear" it is only a suspicion of the main character.

In "Das leben der anderen" the victim is a citizen outside the communist party. In "The ear" members of the communist party are fighting each other.

In "Das leben der anderen" the victim and the perpetrator are both being portrayed. "The ear" focusses exclusively on the victim (because it is not sure that there is a perpetrator). There is lot of attention for the effect on the married life of the victim. In this way the film also has a twist of "Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1966, Mike Nichols) in it.

Husband and wife stagger tired and tipsy through their house at night holding candelabras. Something's not quite right, a basement door open ajar, keys where they shouldn't be, electricity and phone are out of order. A little earlier the movie opens with the couple back at their house after a 'party' gala. They fight and bicker on the pavement out of the car, then inside the house, like we're behind a closed door hearing echoes of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Flashbacks to the party earlier that night in subjective POV shots take us through a roomful of people dressed in suits holding up cocktail glasses ready to toast prominent Party figures, faces peering intently into the camera, huddling together to hide conspiratorial whispers or perhaps simple idle gossip. When the husband goes to the bathroom to freshen up, an old woman shows up to offer him a towel; in doing so, she disappears in the background and stays there, as though placed there to observe.

This is a great movie about paranoia, the "fear" of being watched and discussed, and it's a half good movie when it stops being about paranoia, because at some point we know the couple is being monitored by the Party and have had to live with bugs in their living room for years. In the famous finale of The Conversation, a maddened Gene Hackman tears through his apartment looking for bugs. His nightmare echoes through the years of cinema because it's a nightmare left incomplete, damnation through eternity. Here things become clear in the final act.

This is ambiguous psychodrama for as long as it suits the movie, then it becomes the political indictment it planned to be. It's stunning to me that a movie like this was allowed to be made in the Eastern Bloc of the 1970's. Usually filmmakers working in Soviet Union satellite republics spoke of Soviet tyranny indirectly. They used the Nazis to tell us about living through the oppression of a totalitarian regime. Here comrade Stalin is mentioned by name. As such, this is a brave movie that attacks contemporary things of a contemporary society.

The dimensions of this political thriller are most chilling for me in a particular scene: the husband asks the wife to remember earlier at the party if one particular guest was friendly to her and addressed her by her first name. He reasons that if he did so, if he recognized her in public in a friendly manner, that the husband is not under political scrutiny by his higher-ups, if that were the case everyone would keep their distance from even the wife. Social life in The Ear is not leisure time or exchange of ideas, it's an arena of suspicion and conspiracy, a chess game of ritualized behavior and expected moves.

Back home, behind closed doors, The Ear never sleeps. Under its scrutiny, married life becomes the forum of vented anger and frustration. As the married couple stagger through their household in the dark holding candelabras as though exploring the catacomb of a Gothic horror movie, their exchanges become increasingly unpleasant and hostile. There's one very grueling scene in the bathroom where the wife berates her husband for the choices of a lifetime. Yet in the important moments of life and death, when a man is about to take his own life or when they're coming to get him, they're close together in defiance of everything.