NinadeL

A very enjoyable Hammer adaptation of Le Fanu's classic in all respects. It’s charming in the acting, and straightforward in design. The subtle lesbian touch sometimes turns very explicit. The peculiar marriage with the original text is also priceless. As a result, it is possible to accept the change of location and the imperfectly-applied historical narrative. The Karnstein Trilogy started so promisingly... It's just hard to choose whether Ingrid Pitt was more suited to Carmilla or Bathory.

Although I'm not particularly fond of Jeff Bridges (outside of The Fabulous Baker Boys) or John Heard, I have to admit that, forgetting the shards Passer left behind in Czechoslovakia, his exile work is probably most reminiscent of Miloš Forman's rebirth. While Forman went within himself, assimilated, and made it to the Oscars, he never suppressed his own perception of the world. Passer, on the other hand, assimilated and fortunately put the New Wave cries completely behind him, and his films in exile can be considered films, not the various attempts and experiments of most of his migrant contemporaries and their family members.

Oddly enough, this is a much better film than Das kalte Paradies. Sometimes it's simply better not to go improve on the first film so that at least it works. The story of the Czech emigrants is multi-layered and deserves even better direction, but the acting is realistic, and Landovský traditionally exceeds.

It’s quite bad in terms of the formal aspects and yet excellent in content, but in a completely inaccessible package for a wider audience. It’s too bad because it didn't have to be this way in the first place. Documentaries or literature reflect much better on the topic.

I'm afraid I have found a counterpoint to Protector, even though The Butcher of Prague is an exemplarily different film. While the failure of Protector was in the spirit of a fake plot and a fake attempt to make a "different" drama with the assassination in the background, spiced up with fake acting performances and a remarkably odd work with the mass media culture of the time, in The Butcher of Prague we have the assassination again as a dysfunctional decoy on the background of the story of "real" people. Petr Nikolaev's film lacks the steady hand of a dramaturgist, so it splinters and splinters throughout the run time, finding no solid follow-up moments. It cuts time in a leisurely manner and although the prologue is already hinted at in 1939 and we meet the point (non-point) of the post-World War II days of 1945 at the end, the only consistent development concerns Karel Roden's Šíma. On the other hand, the story of the forger Kowalski (Mariusz Osmelak) with the whole absurd color of the prison system of that time is completely lost. The basis of the story of the gentlemen's cook played by Sabina Remundová is missing, and the same applies to the plot of the otherwise apparently very strong relationship between Šímová played by Zuzana Bydžovská and Vaňková played by Zuzana Fialová. Unfortunately, all the young actors, led by Kubarová and Adamczyk, and not ending with Šoposká, for example, fail completely. The introduction, which is supposed to show the story of the people from Lidice in all the basic nuances of everyday life, unfortunately resembles more so the attempts of the Czech TV film Rytmus v patách (Rhythm in the Heels) and unfortunately in some moments it reaches the level of a parody, which is reprehensible. The primitive casting, concentrated in the best-split roles exclusively on Slovak actors who already meet a certain foreignness in the first plan, also feels cheap. Roman Luknár appears next to Fialová as Vlček and together with Bydžovská and Roden, they form the only solid pillars of this uncoordinated fiacre. In anticipation of it and during the preparation of The Butcher of Prague, certain issues emerged, contrasting particularly with the tone of Herz's Habermann's Mill. I have to say that Nikolaev's final project really bit off more than it could chew. There is no difference between the official red tape of the Czech opportunist postmaster and the Lidice Nazi leaders, who are again just opportunist bureaucrats. The elite of the Third Reich is represented only by Heydrich in two insignificant sketches, who in this minimal space does not exceed a bullet point from an overview textbook. He is contrasted with a regular soldier who chooses voluntary death rather than participate in the transport of the Lidice children. Yet even this motive is not properly developed. Thus, in conjunction with the hypocrisy represented by the post-war artificially created human reverence, I do not find any sympathy with my own nation and again I only feel frustration with Czech nature.

A superb classic comedy starring a young Kirsten Dunst, who so convincingly played teenagers from three historical decades during her teenage years. In Mona Lisa Smile, she returned to the 1950s (and highlighted the problems of the post-war generation), in The Hairy Bird to the 1960s (and de facto destroyed the last vestiges of snobbery in boarding schools), and in Dick, she roller-skated her way around the Watergate affair into the disco 1970s. Together with Michelle Williams, they make a fantastic pair that makes this comedy an utterly irresistible affair.

The Loveliest Riddle falls again into the picturesque section of South Bohemian caressing and references to the popular period of neutral peasant baroque. This film does not do as good of a job of combining two Czech fairy tales together as some other films have done in the past. For the first time, however, Troška does not look for any downright dark themes in Drdov’s writing, instead emphasizing characters from other times. Medvecká's French speaker in particular is a classic educator acceptable across the centuries. Dolanský, Potměšil, and Táborský only fulfill the set scheme, but the real surprise is the pleasant performance by Veronika Kubařová.

Miss Golem is aging like a fine wine with every rerun. What more could you ask for when we have Jana Brejchová twice in her most attractive age and the scientific and technical progress of the 1920s? It’s got great dialogue, subtle humor, nice costumes (although it mixes the fashions of the twenties and seventies in a really weird way), and faith in the future. "Don't shed tears." - "It's not good for us." - "Our feet would hurt."

Initially, I got carried away by the gorgeous shots of Aishwarya Rai and most of the video clips, which are gorgeous all the time, wonderfully romantic, and entirely charming... but I forgot that everything else is almost unbearable. The screenplay resembles two films in one when you squint, and the drama is built up with such emphasis on drama in almost every cut that it borders on parody. I would definitely not recommend this film to beginners. It ideally serves only to document the evolution of the dazzling beauty of Aishwarya and her dancing art. The soundtrack itself is not all that great. But in retrospect, her pairing with Arjun Rampal and her motherly role is interesting... In the same year, she also played the mother of a grown-up child in Don't Say a Word.

Personally, I very much welcome The Rising: Ballad Of Mangal Pandey as a successor to the older Lagaan. The basic Western myth of India stands and falls on the period of British colonization, and this myth needs to be further exploited in films of this type. The most burning issues of 1857 are attractively combined in The Rising, as are the outstanding performances by Aamir Khan, Toby Stephens, and Rani Mukherjee, with the cherry on top being Kiron Kher’s performance. The musical interludes may seem inorganic only to viewers who have not yet had much experience, but I especially enjoyed the Holi festival. And 90 years later Indians got their independence, so a bit of pride is definitely in order.