After finding A Bagful of Fleas (1962-also reviewed) to be an interesting, stylish extended short, I decided to view the main feature on the very Second Run DVD, with a taste for something different.
View on the film:
Leaping into her feature film making debut, writer/ directing auteur Vera Chytilova takes the outline she had drawn with her final short of the era A Bagful of Fleas, and brilliantly builds on it, via closely working with Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970-also reviewed) cinematographer Jan Curik on mesmerizing, playfully fluid Czech New Wave (CNW) ultra-stylized camera-moves, from raw and gritty shots in the back of cars, to mesmerizing freeze frames and distorted close-ups on hands and feet during the acrobatics.
After having filmed the fictional Fleas in a CNW documentary style, the screenplay by Chytilova displays an outstanding ambition in crossing the two styles over.
While visually limiting the mixing of the two stories (both focused on women-a major recurring motif in Chytilova's works) to a short clip of real life Olympic gymnast Eva Bosakova (currently the 7th most decorated gymnast at the World Championships,and also introduced the cartwheel on beam) playing on Vera's TV, but cleverly having each be thematically linked, from Eva getting questions from the press that are repeated by Vera's husband,to a shared frustration at the mundane lives they are stuck in, as Eva and Vera each search for something different.
View on the film:
Leaping into her feature film making debut, writer/ directing auteur Vera Chytilova takes the outline she had drawn with her final short of the era A Bagful of Fleas, and brilliantly builds on it, via closely working with Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970-also reviewed) cinematographer Jan Curik on mesmerizing, playfully fluid Czech New Wave (CNW) ultra-stylized camera-moves, from raw and gritty shots in the back of cars, to mesmerizing freeze frames and distorted close-ups on hands and feet during the acrobatics.
After having filmed the fictional Fleas in a CNW documentary style, the screenplay by Chytilova displays an outstanding ambition in crossing the two styles over.
While visually limiting the mixing of the two stories (both focused on women-a major recurring motif in Chytilova's works) to a short clip of real life Olympic gymnast Eva Bosakova (currently the 7th most decorated gymnast at the World Championships,and also introduced the cartwheel on beam) playing on Vera's TV, but cleverly having each be thematically linked, from Eva getting questions from the press that are repeated by Vera's husband,to a shared frustration at the mundane lives they are stuck in, as Eva and Vera each search for something different.