Happy End
Directed by:
Oldřich LipskýCinematography:
Vladimír NovotnýComposer:
Vlastimil HálaCast:
Vladimír Menšík, Jaroslava Obermaierová, Josef Abrhám, Bohuš Záhorský, Stella Zázvorková, Jiří Steimar, Martin Růžek, Bedřich Prokoš, Josef Hlinomaz (more)Plots(1)
The edge of the guillotine separates the condemned man's head from his trunk, but the head immediately jumps back and unites with the body and the butcher Bedřich Frydrych comes back to life. With a good deal of temperament, he begins to tell his story "backwards" and returns to the events preceding his execution - as far back as to his dramatic first meeting with his future wife Julie. - At the court, Bedřich is sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. He was caught by a constable, while he was carrying her quartered body in a suitcase. The following sequence describes - through running the camera backwards - the "assembly" of his wife's body into its original state and the story continues to the beginning of Bedřich's life. He lives comfortably with Julie but a wild jealous scene reveals that Julie is unfaithful to him. Bedřich searches out his wife's lover, a Mr Ptáček whom he had heroically saved from drowning during their honeymoon by the sea. Bedřich's marriage with Julie is preceded by his split with his lover. Although Julie's mother agrees with the wedding, the girl attempts to commit suicide. The story goes back to the beginning, to the first acquaintance of Bedřich with Julie, who saves Julie from a fire. In the film, however, it looks as if Bedřich threw Julie into the fire; then he descends the ladder and, by kissing the hand of his former lover, attains a happy end. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (6)
The equivalent of a stoner party where every word is used as a pun and taken out of context just for an instant burst of laughter. At the same time, the film is quite surprising in its morbidity (you can’t put Otýlie Vranská back in the box), its naturalism (the slaughterhouse), and how manic it is in its infantilism. A great combination.
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Perfect piece of work. In the 1960s, Czech cinema was so advanced that even the Americans should take out their notebooks and organize professional screenings of films like Happy End. The amazing actors are overshadowed by a unique script where characters walk backwards, broken objects are mended, food comes out of mouths back onto plates, and everything comes together to form a story that intertwines with the real, "forward-moving" one in a truly admirable and thoughtful way. And of course, as is usual with Lipský, the whole thing is smart, funny and exaggerated. It’s certainly not the best, but thanks to the originality of the premise, it’s the most interesting Czechoslovak film ever made. At least now we know where Nolan may have gotten some of his inspiration for Memento :D 95%
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If Happy End was filmed today, it would become a sensation and would tour a few festivals, eventually entering the Oscar race. There would be talk about it in superlatives and international feedback would surpass domestic praise. However, at the time of its premiere, the audiences in movie theaters rewarded it with polite disinterest and saw it more as a curiosity, without any significant reactions, and surprisingly, even the film critics let it fizzle out. In the following decades, it was not utilized by television either, so it remained hidden from the wider public for a long time. It is a clever playful experiment, where the story is told in reverse. It has finely crafted and coordinated dialogue that, when juxtaposed with the events on the screen, usually gains a secondary ironic meaning. The biggest mystery associated with Happy End for me is why I don't feel like giving this entertaining game of cruelly punished infidelity the highest rating. Overall impression: 85%.
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Sometimes you really wonder what treasures you will find in Czech cinema. An incredibly intriguing concept of telling the story in reverse, but with the twist that it's used for an engaging narrative where dialogues reign supreme, and thanks to the reverse chronology, they are very witty. The acting is excellent. The Czechs had some really great and innovative creators.
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A sad lifetime seen backward. The picture doesn’t only rely on showing an ordinary situation backward somewhat slapstick style. That would get boring pretty quickly. It creates its own world of genius, with its own rules and humor, where the visual comedy of regular situations played back inside out really is just one of its winning aspects. And that is where Happy End differs from many other pictures with a similar idea. And it’s all underpinned by the genius narration by the “newborn" Vladimír Menšík. amenic hcezC fo eceip lausunu A. Oldřich Lipský’s best movie. Really.
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