During the Eastern Europe viewing challenge on ICM I've been following the progress of other participants over the month. Having found a number of auteur film maker Vera Chytilova's work interesting,I was intrigued to see praise for a Chytilova I've not heard of before,I picked up a fruit of a paradise.
Note:Some spoilers in review.
View on the film:
Bobbing for apples a year after a ban was lifted on her not directing again after international pressure from the film community and her writing a letter to President Gustav Husak over her support of socialism, co-writer/(with Kristina Vlachova) directing auteur Vera Chytilova makes a blazing return to cinema, busting open with Czech New Wave (CNW) ultra-stylisation in frenzied criss-crossing between human births and apples falling from the tree. Dipping the CNW into the French New Wave via shooting "on the spot" in real,dingy locations,Chytilova & cinematographer Frantisek Vlcek continue building on the unpredictable fluidity of Chytilova's camera moves, spun from lightening fast pans around the maternity ward, to floating dolly shots bringing out an intimate atmosphere for Josef's liaisons.
Less outwardly political than her past (and what would later be,future) work, the screenplay by Chytilova and Vlachova continues to build on Chytilova's major theme across her work of expressing femininity,with a winning zest. Happily playing away between Anna and his wife like a little boy, the writers intelligently find the political underneath the skin,where Anna (played by an enticingly expressive Dagmar Blahova) tears off the fantasied nurse outfit which John (played by a perfectly meek,fellow CNW film maker Jiri Menzel) has become tied to,in order to peel away to her inner independence, maturely minded self,with Anna picking up the fruit of paradise.
