September 24, 2025 • 63 mins
Czechtember charges ahead as Mike, Spencer Parsons, and Emily Barney dive into Otakar Vávra’s Romance for Bugle (1967). Vávra adapts František Hrubín’s celebrated poem into a lyrical love story set in the Czech countryside. Terina (Zuzana Cigánová), a young Roma woman, ignites passion in Vojta (Jaromír Hanzlík) and Viktor (Štefan Kvietik), pulling the two men into a tense triangle of longing and rivalry. The film also reflects back through the eyes of Vojta as an older man (Július Vašek), who recalls his youthful heartbreak. Cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera saturates the screen with striking imagery, while Vávra shapes the material into a cinematic elegy that fuses poetry, politics, and loss.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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To the oh geez, folks.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's showtime.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
When they go out to a theater. They want clothed, sodas,
hot popcorn in.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
No monsters in the projection Booth.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Got it off?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Said guy Ye saw school.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Naha Smiths.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So he's a mulis nawstrata las.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
What did ski fi? The romance.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Fudo not sirs formal.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host. Mike White
joined me once again is Ms Emily Barney Hey. Also
back in the booth is mister Spencer Parsons.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
We continue Cheptember twenty twenty five with a look at
Adakar Vavra's Romance for Bugle, also known as Romance for
lugol Horn. It's a lyrical movie based on a poem
of the same name written by franticek Kruben and adapted
and directed by Adakar Vavra. The film is a classic
love triangle about two men, Voita and Victor, and their
(01:56):
shared fascination with the same woman. Tarina will be spoiling
this film as much as we can, so if you
don't want anything ruined, please turn off the podcast and
come back after you've seen it. We will still be here.
So Emily, when was the first time you saw Romance
for Bugle and what did you think?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So this was a new one for me. I know
it was on my watch list. Odacar Babra is such
a major figure in check film, so I'm always interested
in seeing his movies. Of course, I've seen witch Hammer
and Krakate his first kind of avant garde film, so
(02:32):
I was very interested seeing it, and I really loved
the movie. I'm kind of a sucker for sad social dramas,
and it's a very sad movie. It's a really beautiful
sense of nostalgia and sweetness before it kind of crushes
your soul. So I really enjoyed the movie.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And Spencer, how about yourself, Yeah, this is my first
time seeing it and really loved it. This is a
new filmmaker to me, Yeah, really terrific work, and I
want to see more of his stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
This was also a new one for me. I remember
seeing the DVD or poster image for this a lot
for whatever reason, maybe it was in like the Facets
catalog or something, But as soon as I saw Yerimer Hanzlik,
I was like, Yeah, I love that guy. I love
watching that guy. I really like to see more things
(03:24):
with him in it. So I said, yeah, let's do it,
and had no idea really walking in what it was
about that it was based on this poem, what the
poem was, how significant it was for Czech culture, that
they've made this movie several times or made the poem
adapted it several times for usually the stage, but yeah,
(03:45):
checking out this movie, and also that it was nineteen
sixty seven, which is an interesting year in Czech history,
just right before the whole progue spring, and seeing where
we were with the world at that point, and how
this film kind of flex things back. It feels like
there's not a care in the world sometimes but other
times it feels like, you know, we have some looming danger.
(04:08):
And then also noting a little bit of Vava's past
and just how he was such a huge influence on
Czech filmmaking and especially being a teacher at FAMU and
teaching so many of the filmmakers that I know and
love so much. So I'm always up for seeing whatever
he does. And then, yeah, like you said, Emily Witchhammer
(04:30):
really blew me away, so again I wanted to see
more of his work. This morning, I was on a
podcast about Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and I was
saying that one of my least favorite things in all
movies is to start with a framing story and never
come back to the framing story. I'm so glad that
we start with a framing story and actually come back
to it. And it's such a fitting end for this film.
(04:53):
And I like that we set up this relationship between
these two men that just kind of meet in a
bar and we know some thing has gone on between them,
and that they start talking about this woman, Tarina, and
the one guy, Victor, is like, oh, you want to
see her? You want to go see Tarina and immediately
heads to the graveyard on his tractor, and I'm like, oh, okay,
(05:16):
what's going on between these two guys?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
All right? Can we just also give due respect to
this tractor ride as probably the most like alarming ride
on a tracker in cinema. I've never seen anything quite
like it. They're on their way and it is clearly
a little frightening and heavy just on the ride there.
It's filmed as if it's Alex and the drugs driving
(05:41):
their little crazy car through London. What a way to
open the film. As soon as the movie ended, I
started it over again to go back to the frame
story because it is evocative. It's such a great way
to start the movie. But I also had this desire
to revisit because the rest of the store went into
(06:01):
zones that had made me almost forget it. As evocative
and intense as it had been, and as much as
it was about her death right out of the gate,
when we got to the mention of her death at
the very end, I was like, Oh, but I just
didn't want to believe it. I'm told upfront, and I
don't want to believe this major event of the story. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I revisited that sequence a lot as well. It's just
such a nightmare kind of scenario, and it also it
makes it kind of the tractor kind of makes it
hard to place, like when in time is this happening
and you're trying to orient yourself, you know, is this
the present, is it just because they're in a rural
area that this is a thing people do, or you know,
(06:48):
is this the past. So it's a little insuttling in
that respect. I wanted to point out kind of a
cultural thing with cemeteries. You know, here in the US
we have lots of you know, one person. You know,
you buy your plots and you're there forever or until
they move it. But in the Checklands, you rent and
(07:09):
usually like a whole family will be in like a
plot together and then like every ten years you pay
your cemetery bill. So that moment where you know, they
go wake up the caretaker, we want to see her,
and he's like, well, someone else took the space. I
don't know where she is now, She's she's not there
any longer. You know, you don't know who these people are,
(07:31):
but you know that they knew each other, they had
this connection. And then here you know, this man Voita
is just finding out oh not only is she dead,
but like she wasn't cared for, you know, her body's
just gone. And now this strunk Man is going to
take him on a tractor ride through the fields, and
it's like.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
The wind in the willows. Suddenly.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I love the string music that kind of comes in
and just really like reinforcing, like, yeah, this is terrifying.
It's not just you. This is kind ofa's nightmare that
we're witnessing, and just seeing him looking like he's about
to throw up on the tractor there.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, the soundtrack of this, and I don't mean just
the music, which is obviously majorly important. We start off
with an accordion playing and then we go into Victor
playing his bugle, and the bugle comes back when they
end up right before the credits start. They end up
in this kind of open area and he starts playing
(08:28):
the bugle again. But I'm talking about the sound mix
of all the dogs barking. There are some sirens. Whenever
he Voita goes to see his grandfather, there are these
flies that are buzzing like crazy. I think they do
a great job of just setting so much of the
tone with the music bed or the soundtrack that's going
(08:50):
on with the sound effects, and it's not always just
the music, it's just the sounds of what this world
is that they live in.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, the sounds of bugs in this movie are really intense,
and I love the dogs. The dogs make that seem
so unsettling. It's like all the dogs in town are
all barking at once at night. How can anybody manage it?
But it's yeah, wonderful and nightmarish.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
The clock in their cottage just always ticking, just this
sense of time is coming.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And it wasn't until the second time I watched it
that I realized what the opening credits were going over.
That it's this kind of carousel that they have, and
it's all of these beautiful paintings that they have on
the carousel. And it's such a lovely way of having
the credits and showing these beautiful images and also getting
(09:43):
to see that one of my favorite people, Esther Kombakova,
did the costumes for this. Interestingly, it's listed as a
sixty seven film every place I look, but the copyright
on the actual film is sixty six.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
That's when they shot it, Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I wasn't sure if there was the and release or whatnot.
And then having that little I wish he had subtitles
for this. The OVID quote that opens up the.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Film, I translated it, oh please, So yeah, it's it's
Ovid's version of the myth of Phaetone, and it says,
you ask for great things, Faeetone, but this gift is
beyond your power. Your boyish age cannot achieve it. You
are mortal, but what you desire is not mortal. And
I guess the myth is Fayetone is the mortal son
(10:29):
of the god Apollo. There's different versions of it with
different gods, but in his it's Apollo. And to prove
that he is Apollo's son, he wants to drive Paula's chariot.
So the quote is Apollo saying, like you're too young,
you can't control it. And then the myth, he does
end up taking the chariot and it goes terribly and
(10:49):
causes a lot of destruction and death, and so then
Jupiter throws a lightning bolt at him and kills him.
So another little tid that we're not in for a fun.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Time here, no, And I have to say every version
of this that I've been able to track down horrible subtitles,
really bad subtitles like broken English, bad spelling coming up
sometimes at the wrong time, and I hope that the
DVD of this has better subtitles, and I hope that
(11:21):
there's a blu ray of this on the horizon, because
it looks gorgeous. Even with these bad subtitles, the movie
looks fantastic.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
The Check DVB. I looked into ordering it and having
it shipped, but it didn't have English subtitles, so this
is definitely due for a restoration and proper subtitles.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I really hope one of our boutique disc companies can
see clear to put this out. I think this movie
is really remarkable. It's definitely my favorite new to me
movie of this year. As a filmmaker, Vabra feels incredibly important,
spanning the history a lot of complicated stuff about his life,
(12:04):
but this particular film, and when I was watching it,
I really just went in cold. I did not read
any of the materials in advance. I didn't look up
anything about him. Part of my approach was like, Okay, yes,
it was a very check new wave filmmaking. It definitely
fit into my notion of that. And now I'm really
(12:26):
interested in what really were the styles of check filmmaking
before the New wave, because that's where my clock on
Chech filmmaking begins, and then finding out that Vava's an
older filmmaker. Yes, he has a big influence on Check
new wave filmmakers. It really did have me asking questions
(12:47):
about check style in general, and that, for instance, some
of the writing on him says that his style is
not that unusual. And I didn't pig this movie for
being a big innovative film. But the shooting, cutting and
blocking is impeccable throughout and also very it feels very particular,
(13:10):
very handmade for this particular story, really careful and beautiful work,
even some small things. The sudden cut early on in
the movie from the carousel. It's a carousel, but it's
on these long chains that are I will admit a
little bit frightening to me, which just wonderful, but it's
a very sudden and jarring cut to the razor blade
(13:33):
as he's shaving, and then not long after that, it's
very disorienting that little scythe pricking at his back. Beautiful
shot of his shoulder blades, and then the scythe comes
in and we start revealing the scene moving out. Yeah,
this initial cut from beautiful, romantic but also slightly dangerous
(13:55):
feeling moment to these like sharp objects is really beautiful
visual storytelling, and the movie is full of that all throughout.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Lava. He started making movies in the thirties and was
kind of an avant garde filmmaker, active in kind of
The Left Bank. His kind of second film he worked
on with Alexander Hackenschmied The Future Mister Maya Darin. So
he kind of has these avant garde bona fides that
(14:28):
you know, as time went on, as he worked under
different authoritarian regimes, you can still kind of see little
bits of that in his movies. And then I think,
just yeah, working with the New Way filmmakers, you know,
he learned from them as much as they learned from him,
and he really was able to kind of embrace that
side of himself again, which is really, you know, lovely
(14:50):
and it's too bad it didn't last, but you know
that's the best films of his career, and you know
that he felt himself as well. They were the films
he loved the most that he made.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, there were I think a few filmmakers him and
I can't remember the gentleman's name that did The Devil's
Trap and the Fifth Horseman is Fear. They really got
a shot in the arm when it came to the
New Wave and being able to have a new lease
on life, which was very nice to see. And then
even yeah, posts Prague Spring, I mean witches Hammer or
(15:26):
witch Hammer, whatever you want to call it. It is
such a great film and you know, such a condemnation
of all the show trials and things that had happened
in Czechoslovakia. So even though some people had real problems
with him, he didn't necessarily you know, in the US,
like he didn't name names kind of thing. But he
(15:48):
wasn't as loved by the younger filmmakers after he aligned
himself with more of the Communist government after the Progue Spring.
But I feel that Witch's Hammer really redeems him, at
least in my mind.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I guess the first kind of instance of it is
with Alfred Roddock in nineteen forty nine he made Distant.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Journey, and god, that's such a great film.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, so Bavra was very outspoken, this is bourgeois and
this is a terrible movie, and you know, so they
didn't like ban it, but then you know, they didn't
didn't have a wide release, and it destroyed his film career.
You know, he never could quite get back to film.
So I think a lot of people, especially you know,
(16:32):
because that was before the check nude wave and everything, like,
he was a party man and it did some damage there.
So I think there's kind of a long history of
you know, he is the establishment spencer.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You mentioned the cut to the razor blade and then
the little scythe that goes into his back as he's shaving.
The sudden cut to the grandfather character was pretty startling
as well. The way he is there saying home, we
have to go home and things, and I'm like, okay,
I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I mean, I'm
(17:07):
pretty sure that he's got dementia of some sort. He
just seems pretty out of it. And it really feels
like Vadka as spending most of his life taking care
of his grandfather and putting a lot of other things
on hold. Though he is going to be a teacher,
even though it sounds like that's not necessarily what he
wants to do. It sounds like what his father wants
(17:29):
him to do. And it's nice that we realize from
that opening framing device that that's what he ended up
doing so, he ended up not following his dreams.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Part of the beautiful structure of that scene is that
because there's been a framing device, I initially took the
pictorial elements as being possibly out of time, cross cutting
two different timelines, and we're not. But it gives us
that feeling, which is then very important to understanding the
(18:03):
character of the grandfather, who, in his own weird way,
because of his stroke, is unstuck in time. There are
really wonderful kinds of poetic devices that Devabra is finding
within setting up a very simple scene to get us
a little bit wrong footed in one way that then
gets us very right footed for the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
This is actually the third film that Barbara made with
the writer Frantisha Khrubin, and the movie before this one
the Golden Rennet. It's based on a book, but it's
very much like the timelines are kind of interweaving together.
And it didn't do very like it won you know, awards.
It did great critically, but audiences didn't understand it. So
(18:49):
they really kind of use that experience to refine kind
of the timeline because the poem is very mixed up,
so they kind of made it a little more audio
and is friendly.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I wasn't able to see that movie. Did you manage
to track it down?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah? There's no English subtitles though, And I could understand
the check, you know, if I'm like Kyd of rewinding
and relistening, So it would have taken me like six
hours to do that, so I kind of just let
it ride, you know. And so I did understand a
fair amount of it. And it's very, yeah, surreal and dreamy,
(19:25):
so maybe it's not totally necessary, you know, it's very beautiful,
and I mean that would be like a great double feature,
I guess, or double package Golden Rennet and Romance Rebeugal.
And it's a very similar story as well. A man
in his fifties who's kind of disappointed with the choices
he's made and goes to visit his home village and
(19:49):
you know, there's a girl he loved where he didn't
show up to their meeting, and you know, so it's
there's very similar themes happening. They're kind of cosmic twins. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I saw there were clips of that in that Golden
sixties episode about Vavra, and they had subtitles on there,
so I was very excited and got to see a
few clips and I said, oh, I want to see this,
but I couldn't find a version of it. So I'm
glad that you were able to see it even without subtitles.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I searched everywhere for subtitles, but so I'm sure somewhere
they exist.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
I am surprised that Tonka doesn't play more of a
role in this film. She's very present in the opening
of this and that's also where we get a lot
of the more avant garde kind of things, the way
that were cutting to her in the river and cutting
back to him on shore as he's reading this book
with this big spider crawling up the book. I thought
(20:44):
it was a really nice image, and just the images
of the insects. And he was talking again in that
Golden Sixties episode about how his cinematographer on this was
very patient and really understood what he was going for
and wanted to capture some of these images of these
insects because they weren't cgi, you know, and they weren't
(21:05):
a little puppets on strings being pulled by a fishing
wire or anything. These are real bugs that they were
capturing and this lyrical you know, I used that word before,
but just the use of nature and these insects and things.
And again going back to the insects, sound of the
grandfather being tied into that almost like he's rotting before
(21:28):
he's dead. I think it's gorgeous. And some of these
images of those two Tanka and Vatchya in the river
floating around very erotic stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
This is a wonderful lesson in eroticism with like minimal
minimal nudity or specific action. And it isn't just this,
it's this scene is the big one and the most obvious.
This is a very horny movie, and in a really
wonderful way, from right out of the gate introducing the
(22:00):
younger versions of our triangle characters. One the very first
shot of this young woman is not necessarily so erotic,
but she is riving. She's absolutely riveting. And then it
does the cuts to the male gaze kind of things,
(22:21):
and then she returns the gaze towards them, and that
little sequence is like a really beautiful kind of reciprocal
kind of experience of at least two people within the
situation seeing noticing each other and wanting to be together
in a way that is done without any words, done
(22:42):
without a whole lot of action, an invitation to ride
the ride as it were, and really beautifully done, and
the introduction of Tanka with the side of touching his back.
The movie is really full of this, and yeah, placing
it within and nature that is not precisely eroticized, but
(23:04):
these images of nature definitely placed them into the natural
flow of things. The whole movie until the end really
takes on a kind of beautiful eroticism. The shapes created
by their faces in relationship to each other in a
number of tight two shots are just beautiful, really lovely,
(23:28):
and the kind of thing that we're in a little
bit more censorious moment commercially within American cinema and whatnot.
These are the kinds of tricks that I wish people
would learn if they're uncomfortable with nudity, if they're uncomfortable
with depicting a sexual behavior, than a movie like this
is a perfect example of how to visualize this kind
(23:52):
of attraction. And yes, the one scene in the river
that one's more traditionally much more traditionally erotic, but the
whole film really has a kind of really beautiful observed
eroticism to it that is extremely important to the story's
ultimate turns. This is a life and death and sense
(24:17):
of disappointment. Again one of the things going back to
the very beginning, looking at the first shot of our
main guy as he's sitting in this the teacher's suit
on the corner of the bar, the sense of a
disappointment is a great tension with all this eroticism and romance.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
It's such a great look that the man that they
cast as a fifty year old voit. He looks like
he's seen things and just you know, just looks haunted.
I'm sure he's, you know, a lovely man, that just
just the structure of his face, he just looks very drawn.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And he looks very much like the young actor. He's
passed well for believability. But then he's also he has
an incredible presence in what I guess is the present tense,
not the flashback of the film. And all the actors
in this movie are incredible. I really love all the performances,
(25:15):
and Voyce's patience with all of them is terrific.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I'm so glad that there's no doubt in my mind
when we go from the frame into the flashback. Who
is who? You know? I immediately know, Oh, that's the
teacher and that's the bugle player. And I don't have
to wait until, you know, minute twenty five or whatever
for him to pull up the bugle and start playing
(25:42):
for me to go, oh, that's who that is. No,
I immediately I think he's probably wearing the same hat,
he's got the darker features and everything. Yeah. I like
that we are told this without having to have like
a slow dissolve on their face. No saving Private Ryan
and shot right, we go from Matt Damon to old
man kind of thing. No, No, we're smart enough to
(26:03):
realize who these guys are.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
This is also an argument in favor of not doing
aging or de aging kind of stuff. Just cast the
different actors and get the right people and put them
together in a way that makes sense. Because one of
the things that's really important here that obviously actors are
capable point to like Maximon Saido and The Exorcist as
(26:26):
very capable of physically embodying somebody much older than he was.
But again, one of the things that's really important in
the setup and payoff is that these are people with
older bodies it's not just makeup or obviously we do
cgi Martin Scorsese, he has pol tricks among others. But
it is really important to say that we see the
(26:49):
bodies at the ages that they're inhabiting at the different times,
and that yeah, and that the filmmakers make absolutely clear
who everybody is in a way that really is. Other
films have done this, but this is one of the
strongest examples of perfect casting and then framing and presentation
(27:12):
to make clear who is who.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Well, Victor was played by the same actor, both young
and old, and you know he would have been like, yeah,
so he would have been.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I looked it up even because I was like, I
was going, oh, is that makeup? If that's makeup, that's
really good. Wow, I'm wrong, I've gone well right on
one point. That's really interesting because I had a little
bit of a suspicion at first, but I kept watching him.
What a great actor to get on that tractor the
right way. But I really did think I looked it
(27:43):
up on IMDb trying to figure out who is who,
and I guess somehow I mistook that there were I
thought there were two actors for him.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And he just passed away in twenty twenty five, which
is remarkable that he was one of the few surviving actors.
I don't know if if Tarina was still around or
if she succumbed to disease two months after this movie
was released, but I hope not.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
She's still around.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Okay, good, She's a really remarkable actor. I want to
see her in other films. One of those instant things
of just seeing her with the Merry Go Round and
her reaction and trying to sell it and everything just
instantly she's riveting and then really incredible performance throughout the film.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah, I looked her up because she looked familiar and
she did a lot of like Slovak TV, so that
was the majority of her career. The one movie I
had seen was Celebration in the Botanical Garden. She has
kind of a small part in that, but yeah, it
was kind of surprising that she hasn't really done more
that that we would be familiar with, and that Miriam
(28:50):
kin Torko played Tonka. You know, she's been in quite
a few things that I recognized her from. She's wonderful
with such a I mean, she's not in the movie
a lot, but like we know, who she is.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Oh yeah, she's so striking. Those features are just amazing,
and I love how we keep flashing back to her.
We really enter into people's heads in this movie and
will be part of their flashbacks to other things. Just
a little brief, entire scenes kind of things, but just
little images that will flash through their heads. I really
(29:24):
like that too.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
There's an image of her standing by the water that
had me very worried for her, but said night and
she's gone out there and there's a sense that she's
looking for him and expecting maybe to meet and it's
very brief, but she grabbed my heart. And that's a
tribute to the performance and then to the filmmaking, the
very careful work with each performer. There's a beautiful shot
(29:51):
where the camera moves with her as she's in the
foreground and kind of a little bit dark and out
of focus, and he and the grandfather are in the background,
and as they move, she moves and the camera moves
with her, framing this foreground background. That again, for character
who's not in the movie that much, is really given
a kind of care to make sure that she is
(30:14):
a full part of the story, even if she's not
on that much. Even if her kind of final moment
is just recognizing she's trying to do a seduction and
then recognizes that the grandfather has died and suddenly breaks away.
There's not a huge melodrama that she goes off and
kills herself or something. But she has a really important
(30:35):
place in the overall structure of this story and in
the gentle sense of again that tension between the eroticism
and disappointment then where things go, because yeah, again the
scene with the two of them in the water is
just it's so fun, and then getting called back to
the grandfather. But that's it for them. This is not
(30:58):
a romance that's going to develop. But yeah, all four
points on the because it's not really quite a triangle.
There's a more laid out triangle, but we've got a
we have a rectangle or something on here.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
The scene you were talking about with her in the foreground,
you know, right before that she's you know, says, oh,
you know, Grandma, you don't have to worry about me.
I'm gonna have lunch at the farmers. And it's like
that kind of says everything, like because at the beginning
I kind of wondered, like you know, she's she's clearly
older than Foeita, and it's like, why is she going
after this kid? You know, she cuts grass and nettles.
(31:37):
She's living with her grandma in this little village, working
on a farm, like there's probably not a lot of options.
And then you know, here's a strapping young man comes
home from on vacation and it's like, hey, here's here's
like my shot to have a man here. So it does.
It does really kind of make you feel for her,
(31:58):
especially those scenes where she's waiting by the river, like
you know, she's very very flirty, very you know, thirsty,
but she has this heart to her and like she's
really sad that he's not, like she really does care
for him. So I think at those moments are really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
And this does feel so much. I mean, before we
were recording, I was talking with Spencer about August and
just how August feels like it's I said, a month
of Sundays and so far as that dread of going
back to school. And even though I haven't had a
summer vacation in ooh thirty some years, thirty one years,
(32:39):
I miss that feeling of being on summer break but
then that dread of going back to school or back
to work or any of those things. It feels like
this is in that spot where everything's about to change.
You know, he's home from school, He's there for a
brief amount of time, and then Eventerarina she's there for
(32:59):
briefmount of time because she is a circus folk. They
are saying, oh, well, we're going to be moving off
pretty soon because this area is dead. And also we
find out later in the film, Oh yes, and I've
been promised to Victor as well. Major bombshell that goes
off for him. But what was going to happen? She
(33:19):
was going to have to go on with the circus anyway.
It's not like she was going to be sticking around.
She's not even seventeen in this she says she's going
to be seventeen in a few weeks. I don't know
if she would even be allowed to get married off.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, she or she was seventeen in a few sundays
and then he was almost twenty. It's cute the conversation
they have where like, oh, we could get married and
you know, my dad will buy us our own you know,
kind of circus caravan and you know, we'll stay at
our cabin in the winter. But it's it's not you know,
(33:52):
we know that that's not going to happen. Even even
if this tragic event doesn't take place, you know, it's
not going to well for them.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The relationship has to go through a lot in this
short time, and one of the things that goes through
is when she puts on Victor's hat and then Voita
becomes very angry in that moment, like out of proportion,
and that maybe is the weird moment of tragedy between
them in a way, because what happens with the grandfather
is the natural passing of time and Voida has to
(34:24):
make some choices about attending to his dead grandfather and whatnot.
But if they had left off at a better moment,
then there might even be like some kind of a
more pleasant goodbye that would be possible. And so yeah,
there's something really interesting and that kind of moment. Yes,
he's twenty, but he has the teenagers kind of sharp
(34:45):
anger over such a small kind of thing when she's
actually just trying to be amusing to him. She's trying
to be funny, but because she's wearing the other guy's
hat he can't have it, and that poisons is what
we know is not necessarily going to be such a
wonderful outcome, but doesn't quite have to be as as
bad as it is.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, I mean, she's clearly, like Pross, you know, she
just found out that morning. She's clearly she's trying to
make light of it, like you know, you can see
she is terrified, and so she's just kind of joking,
but he's taking it personally and being jealous. There was
an interview with Rubin and Fabra and Hrubin felt like
(35:29):
Vota's tragedy was that he didn't try hard enough to
get the girl he loved, whereas Barbara felt like, well,
you know, like you were saying that, no, he had
to attend to his grandfather, and he did the honorable thing.
He was still faithful to her. But I agree like
the moment when he hits her with the hat, like
that's the lynch, Like that's the moment that destroys everything.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Well, and also that that hat is kind of a
sign of rebellion as well, because it was Victor that
told her go get some sour cherries and gives her
the hat to put the sour cherries in and then
rather than taking those back to him, she takes them
to Vatya instead, and it's like, oh, hey, look at me,
and let's have these cherries as kind of literal forbidden fruit.
(36:16):
And then you know when she puts that hat on,
that's when it gets really super angry at her. So
I'm like, oh, well, we went from this light moment
or even this rebellious moment of you know, I'm getting
away with things with Victor, but now it's something completely different.
And yeah, he kind of ruins the whole moment and
(36:37):
ruins any chances that he's had.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
And you know, if he hadn't done that, it's like
if they had parted on good terms, things might have
turned out better, because you know, it looks like they
just missed each other where Like, you know, he shows up,
even though he has to tend to his grandfather, he
still shows up, and he kind of goes to the
caravan and sees their asleep, So you know, I'm sure
(37:00):
his mind he's, oh, I ruined it, she's not coming.
I better go. But then she does show up, and
then I'm sure in her head it's like, well, he
doesn't want me any more I'm going to go back
home instead of it might have fought harder to connect
if that hadn't happened, which.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Is kind of the same thing that he had done
with Tanka, where she's out there waiting for him, thinking
that he's going to show up, and he never does either,
so he stands her up and he probably feels stood
up by Terarina. Yeah, it's just it's tragic, and it's
so bittersweet in the best way that that term can
be used, because you're sitting here, you know, on the
(37:40):
verge of tears, or at least I was watching this
horrible thing happen, but at the same time like, oh,
you know, this is just the way that I had
to happen and play out. And then when you find
what actually happened with Trena afterwards, that she basically dies
of a broken heart, that really just is the real
kick in the teeth.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
The end of this film, the last shot of her
riding with Victor in the whatever that carriage is that
they're on at the end of the circus carriages, they're
headed to the next place. Again to her performance, very
simple in putting on a face and an affect a
wild riding. But it's really heartbreaking that last image of her,
(38:25):
because again, we could still be an unhappy moment, but
if she cried in blue Kisses, that's a very different
kind of an ending. But this sense of a real heartbreak,
as you say, is something that comes into her character,
her performance and that last Yeah, that this last image,
(38:48):
especially going against the first image. I do think that's
its own. We have a frame narrative, but then there's
also a kind of frame of how she's presented as
a character incredibly rant, vibrant and full of life and
then really hurt and deadened in that in the final
(39:12):
shot of her, really beautiful and sad.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I don't know if it's the circus setting or not,
but there were times where I was reminded of Lestrata
with Victor doing that Anthony Quinn role.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The hat moment is actually like a little bit of
a Julietta Messina thing. Yeah, really interesting. You're reminding me
how much I love Lestrata. It's a really beautiful and
again I keep saying careful, but it is. It's a
careful movie, and it's not a big grand plan movie,
but it's observant and there are particular choices that are
(39:48):
made that have they carry the weight of more of
a grand plan, But then the way that the action
unfolds is so much more lively and casual and unpre predictable.
And my feelings at times of that I could predict
where the story was headed, I wasn't right. I'm picking
up on little melodramatic cues that remind me how American
(40:11):
my view of things is. Maybe it might be more
predictable to a check audience used to a certain kind
of storytelling, but really human and paying attention to all
these little moments and little changes that are that have
the intensity of melodrama without having the structure and the
(40:33):
kind of wild repercussions of melodrama. Very small drama here
can be very tragic as well.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
You know, remind me a lot of Thomas Hardy, his
books and the films based on them. With him, there's
this sense of like injustice and you know, this is
not how things should be. We should treat women better,
but you don't get that with this film. It's kind
of like this is how it is and this is
(41:03):
how it will be. So that part does feel very
check about it, you know, like where if it was
American you know, of course it would have some great
romantic moment or you know, one last beautiful kiss or something,
but it's just like, no, she is assaulted and then
they just go off and she dies and Voita lives
(41:24):
in regret his.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Life for his entire freaking life, and Victor's not too
much better off either. No, the episode, that Golden Sixties episode,
Don Vava, he ends with him talking about how much
he dislikes Hollywood films, and he's just talking about how
they're great grafts people, but you know, they're just not filmmakers,
(41:46):
and he drops Felini's name. He talks about Gosh Karne
and Felini and Bergmann and a few other filmmakers, and
he's just like, these are the guys that make the films. Okay,
I can kind of see where you're coming from. Of course,
growing up with American films, a diet of purely American
films for so long, I find a lot to love
(42:08):
about them. But yeah, he was not a big fan
of what was coming over. And I think the whole
idea of this being based on a poem and not
having a traditional structure, because in between those frames, it's
not like we have those things where we're like, okay,
well here's this love triangle and oh, here's the dark
woman Tonka who comes in and upsets the apple cart,
(42:30):
possibly literally, and just you know, like we're not sitting
there following these beats, you know, the whole thing of
him hitting Terina.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
With the hat.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
You'd be like, oh, well, this is that moment in
the romantic comedy where they have a misunderstanding, and we're
going to go for maybe ten fifteen minutes, and then
we're going to find out that, you know, oh, she
actually really wants him back and he wants her back
and all these things, and everybody's going to hug and
we're going to have a great time by the end
of this. No, it is just one tragedy after another.
(43:02):
I mean, think about how many times we see people
caring for their ailing grandfather in movies. Not very often,
and the grandfather is a major character. Every once in
a while, the dad will stop by. That's always interesting
when he comes in. But yeah, this does not follow
typical beats of narrative whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, to go to the Hollywood point, I'm gonna pick
on Hitchcock and not necessarily just Hitchcock, But I had
this thought while I was watching it. Hitchcock had that's
saying that a movie is like life, but with the
boring parts removed, and it's you got to ask a
big question about what's boring, And for instance, the answer
to that would be taking care of your grandfather's of
(43:44):
course after and making sure that his body is well
cared for and that you do the right thing. An
American film often will would for instance, follow through with
something like that, but it would reduce it to a montage.
And this is a movie where we spend time on
every pure and assume that every gesture that is in
the movie is not boring. That's one of the things
(44:05):
about the whole idea of the boring parts removed. There
are a lot of parts of life that we might
think of as boring because they could take time, or
they're unpleasant or difficult, but in fact, this is a
movie about how anything, any particular moment could be full
and definitely not boring. And it's a matter of not
(44:25):
eliminating the boring parts, but of choosing what you are
going to present and for how long and how you
pay attention. And one of the I think one of
the directorial tactics for this over the course of the film,
and I've not seen other films by Vava, but the
(44:46):
intimate movement with each character. We do get our share
of close ups, and we get our share of wide shots,
but the meat and potatoes level of visually telling the
story is a kind of roving camera that moves among
the people and from one to another in different moments
and really pays. The distance of the camera is decided
(45:10):
by what is necessary to see of the person in
an intimate way. That's again granted to every character except
maybe the father. The father is the figure in big,
wide shots for the most part, but he also has
a smaller part of the movie, and maybe also there's
a way of that that represents a psychology. But every
(45:32):
single other major character is given a kind of beautiful
intimacy of deciding where the camera is going to go,
deciding how the camera is going to frame them.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Well, and speaking of intimate, this kind of reminds me
of the film we talked about three years ago, intimate lighting.
There was something maybe it was the what was it?
Didn't he play Cello and that one the main character,
and there's the rival band members kind of thing. So
as soon as I saw Victor with the flugel horn
of the bugle, I was like, oh, we just watched
(46:03):
something recently three years ago with musical instruments and kind
of a return to the village kind of thing. So
it's like, oh, okay, that would probably make a nice
double feature as well.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
There's a saying every check is a musician. I think
it's just something that that's just common for them that
to have, you know, play some kind of instrument. You know,
they're not concerned about, oh you have to go to
school or conservatory. Just no, just play it, sit in
the pub with your friends and you know, with your
(46:35):
accordion and your bugle. And I wanted to mention like
Vavra and hru Being they were about the same age.
Who Being was born in nineteen ten and Barbara was
nineteen eleven, so they were fifty five and fifty six
when they made this, and it was really important to
them to make a movie about people of their generation
who went through both world wars and went through all
(46:57):
this upheaval. And I mean, you see, they don't really
explicitly say when the movie takes place that the poem
is like nineteen thirty, thirty three, and thirty four. The
poem is written in nineteen sixtyes, so you figure it's
probably like early thirties and then the present day's early sixties.
But I think just the way they handle things, the
(47:18):
fact that Voita does, he does go and be a teacher,
he does take care of his grant. You know, he
does what his father wants him to do. The check
new wave films, it's the children are rebelling against their parents,
and you know Voita kind of wants to. He has
those inclinations, but he does follow the path. And so
I think, even though the movie doesn't state explicitly when
(47:42):
it is like, it really does only it really only
could take place during that time period. I can't imagine
a story present day being like that or being responsible.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And that's sadder than the story in this movie. In
a way. Viously, American storytelling and artwork is very wedded
to notions of rebellion, a kind of elemental sense that
you have to rebel and not simply against momentary politics,
but rebelling against larger structures where you could end up
(48:16):
in life how things go. And there's especially given what
they have lived through in the time span of this movie,
and without mentioning any of it, obviously the audience in
Czech Republic is going to be very aware Czechoslovakia at
the time. Yeah, there's the sense of the time, and
there's the sense of what you do, and maybe a
bit of an autobiographical way. There's a disappointment in doing
(48:39):
the thing that was expected and socially necessary and everything.
But that disappointment isn't necessarily the same thing as a
huge injustice. The real disappointment is about the interpersonal choices
that are made, rather than Ah, God, I ended up
a teacher and I didn't want to be a teacher.
He could have run away with the circus, which maybe
(49:00):
that's an interesting story, but not having run away with
the circus is not the main source of the disappointment.
And even if he's disappointed by quote unquote only being
a teacher later in life, that that's not the worst
that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is that
slap with the hat.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
I really enjoyed just learning more about well about Barbara,
but also frontishek Rubin. He's someone where I guess his
name isn't brought up so much for us Americans, but
he starred as a poet, and then when his daughter
was born, he got really interested in children's literature, so
(49:40):
he started writing fairy tales, which that led him to
working with the animator Yhnka, and so he started going
into short film and he did plays and books. So
he's very present in Czech culture and in film. He
ended up writing the screenplay for Correl Zemon's Invention for Destruction,
(50:04):
just an incredible movie. And then besides these three films
he made with Barbra, there was a fourth called Us
that they wanted to do after Witch Hammer, but the
political circumstances had changed and so they weren't allowed. He
died in seventy one, so Fabra did end up making
(50:26):
that film in the eighties, when I guess things had
settled down a bit. He also has a bit of
a role in film. He wrote a play of the
Check version of Beauty and the Beast, which through various
iterations became your eye Hers's Beauty and the Beast. So
I really loved learning more about him and his work.
(50:49):
It's a shame, you know. Check Definitely check out Invention
for Destruction if you haven't seen it. Yeah, if this
film and Golden Rennett could get released. You know, he's
really someone that should be studied in the lest more so,
I really enjoyed learning about him. It was a nice opportunity.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Well, and I appreciate all of the stunning materials that
you brought to the table as well. I really can't
thank you enough for doing that.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
I love having this excuse to go look at books
and by books I don't need, but they're really fun to.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Read and.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Translate OVID from check.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
They're really great reading. I have to thank you. Yeah,
they're terrific stuff to read, really fascinating. And this I
have to say, this has been a great introduction to
Babra And then I'm sorry, Emily, can you say that
say for me the name of the poet.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
I'm sotry Oven, so like Kruben hr u.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
B I n. Yeah. Really an incredible introduction to Babara
and Ruben. Definitely both artists that I want to pay
more attention to in the future.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Well, I just thought today, def Crocodile is going to
be putting out Krakatite Fabras Select nineteen forty eight I
believe movie, which is excellent. So that's an opportunity to
get more into BABRAA.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
All right, we're going to take a break and play
preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
Looking for something superior to streaming, a place with more
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check out Scarecrow Videos Rent by mail service. Select from
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(52:38):
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Speaker 2 (53:23):
Ever m f f f.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
H m hm hm h m hmm.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
That's right. We'll be back next week with a look
at Jan Smackmyers Conspirators of Pleasure. Until then, I want
to thank my co Emily and Spencer. So Emily, what's
the latest with you, ma'am?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Will have happened by the time this episode comes out,
But I am going to be introducing ri I hers Is,
Beauty and the Beast and the Ninth Heart for Super
Horirama's midnight movie screenings at Music Box Theater on August
fifteenth and sixteenth. Then we might be doing some more
Check films in the future, so I watch out for
super Horima. I am going to be on two episodes
(56:27):
of Hour Juan on One with Doctor Ac on YouTube
in November and December. And I started a blog kind
of about just studying Check and learning about Check culture
and movies. So that's at Emily Dashbarney dot com. And
I wrote a bit about odacar Vava's film as well
as watching this, and I'm going to try to keep
(56:48):
watching his movies and just you know, it's kind of
a nice survey through the history of Check film getting
to watch his movies and.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
Spencer, how about yourself, sir.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
I have a short film that I made several years
ago is now airing on Means TV. It's just shown up.
It's the film itself is I shouldn't have given it
such a long title. It's a partial theory of commodity
fetishism and three scenes plus epilogue. Pretty much the synopsis
is in the title. So the downside of a long
title like that is obvious, but the upside is that
(57:20):
I just told you what it's about and how it works.
See title for synopsis. So that's coming up and crawling
towards the finish line with a feature and hoping I
can finish that sooner than later, because I have another
short that I want to ruin my life making in
the coming year. That's what we learned from this movie, right,
find a new little way to ruin my life with
(57:40):
the choices I've made. Yeah, but this has been great.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Well, thank you and thanks again guys for being on
the show, and thanks to everybody for listening. Do you
want to support physical media and get great movies in
the mail, head on over to scarecrow dot com and
try Scarecrow Videos incredible rent by mail service, the largest
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(58:07):
want it, without the scrolling, and yes, of course they
carry romance or bugle in their fine selection of films.
If you want to hear more of me shooting off
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(58:29):
the world
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
S
The Projection Booth podcast is sponsored by Scarecrow Video. Tryout
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To the oh geez, folks.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's showtime.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
When they go out to a theater. They want clothed, sodas,
hot popcorn in.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
No monsters in the projection Booth.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Got it off?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Said guy Ye saw school.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Naha Smiths.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So he's a mulis nawstrata las.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
What did ski fi? The romance.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Fudo not sirs formal.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host. Mike White
joined me once again is Ms Emily Barney Hey. Also
back in the booth is mister Spencer Parsons.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
We continue Cheptember twenty twenty five with a look at
Adakar Vavra's Romance for Bugle, also known as Romance for
lugol Horn. It's a lyrical movie based on a poem
of the same name written by franticek Kruben and adapted
and directed by Adakar Vavra. The film is a classic
love triangle about two men, Voita and Victor, and their
(01:56):
shared fascination with the same woman. Tarina will be spoiling
this film as much as we can, so if you
don't want anything ruined, please turn off the podcast and
come back after you've seen it. We will still be here.
So Emily, when was the first time you saw Romance
for Bugle and what did you think?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
So this was a new one for me. I know
it was on my watch list. Odacar Babra is such
a major figure in check film, so I'm always interested
in seeing his movies. Of course, I've seen witch Hammer
and Krakate his first kind of avant garde film, so
(02:32):
I was very interested seeing it, and I really loved
the movie. I'm kind of a sucker for sad social dramas,
and it's a very sad movie. It's a really beautiful
sense of nostalgia and sweetness before it kind of crushes
your soul. So I really enjoyed the movie.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And Spencer, how about yourself, Yeah, this is my first
time seeing it and really loved it. This is a
new filmmaker to me, Yeah, really terrific work, and I
want to see more of his stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
This was also a new one for me. I remember
seeing the DVD or poster image for this a lot
for whatever reason, maybe it was in like the Facets
catalog or something, But as soon as I saw Yerimer Hanzlik,
I was like, Yeah, I love that guy. I love
watching that guy. I really like to see more things
(03:24):
with him in it. So I said, yeah, let's do it,
and had no idea really walking in what it was
about that it was based on this poem, what the
poem was, how significant it was for Czech culture, that
they've made this movie several times or made the poem
adapted it several times for usually the stage, but yeah,
(03:45):
checking out this movie, and also that it was nineteen
sixty seven, which is an interesting year in Czech history,
just right before the whole progue spring, and seeing where
we were with the world at that point, and how
this film kind of flex things back. It feels like
there's not a care in the world sometimes but other
times it feels like, you know, we have some looming danger.
(04:08):
And then also noting a little bit of Vava's past
and just how he was such a huge influence on
Czech filmmaking and especially being a teacher at FAMU and
teaching so many of the filmmakers that I know and
love so much. So I'm always up for seeing whatever
he does. And then, yeah, like you said, Emily Witchhammer
(04:30):
really blew me away, so again I wanted to see
more of his work. This morning, I was on a
podcast about Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and I was
saying that one of my least favorite things in all
movies is to start with a framing story and never
come back to the framing story. I'm so glad that
we start with a framing story and actually come back
to it. And it's such a fitting end for this film.
(04:53):
And I like that we set up this relationship between
these two men that just kind of meet in a
bar and we know some thing has gone on between them,
and that they start talking about this woman, Tarina, and
the one guy, Victor, is like, oh, you want to
see her? You want to go see Tarina and immediately
heads to the graveyard on his tractor, and I'm like, oh, okay,
(05:16):
what's going on between these two guys?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
All right? Can we just also give due respect to
this tractor ride as probably the most like alarming ride
on a tracker in cinema. I've never seen anything quite
like it. They're on their way and it is clearly
a little frightening and heavy just on the ride there.
It's filmed as if it's Alex and the drugs driving
(05:41):
their little crazy car through London. What a way to
open the film. As soon as the movie ended, I
started it over again to go back to the frame
story because it is evocative. It's such a great way
to start the movie. But I also had this desire
to revisit because the rest of the store went into
(06:01):
zones that had made me almost forget it. As evocative
and intense as it had been, and as much as
it was about her death right out of the gate,
when we got to the mention of her death at
the very end, I was like, Oh, but I just
didn't want to believe it. I'm told upfront, and I
don't want to believe this major event of the story. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I revisited that sequence a lot as well. It's just
such a nightmare kind of scenario, and it also it
makes it kind of the tractor kind of makes it
hard to place, like when in time is this happening
and you're trying to orient yourself, you know, is this
the present, is it just because they're in a rural
area that this is a thing people do, or you know,
(06:48):
is this the past. So it's a little insuttling in
that respect. I wanted to point out kind of a
cultural thing with cemeteries. You know, here in the US
we have lots of you know, one person. You know,
you buy your plots and you're there forever or until
they move it. But in the Checklands, you rent and
(07:09):
usually like a whole family will be in like a
plot together and then like every ten years you pay
your cemetery bill. So that moment where you know, they
go wake up the caretaker, we want to see her,
and he's like, well, someone else took the space. I
don't know where she is now, She's she's not there
any longer. You know, you don't know who these people are,
(07:31):
but you know that they knew each other, they had
this connection. And then here you know, this man Voita
is just finding out oh not only is she dead,
but like she wasn't cared for, you know, her body's
just gone. And now this strunk Man is going to
take him on a tractor ride through the fields, and
it's like.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
The wind in the willows. Suddenly.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I love the string music that kind of comes in
and just really like reinforcing, like, yeah, this is terrifying.
It's not just you. This is kind ofa's nightmare that
we're witnessing, and just seeing him looking like he's about
to throw up on the tractor there.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, the soundtrack of this, and I don't mean just
the music, which is obviously majorly important. We start off
with an accordion playing and then we go into Victor
playing his bugle, and the bugle comes back when they
end up right before the credits start. They end up
in this kind of open area and he starts playing
(08:28):
the bugle again. But I'm talking about the sound mix
of all the dogs barking. There are some sirens. Whenever
he Voita goes to see his grandfather, there are these
flies that are buzzing like crazy. I think they do
a great job of just setting so much of the
tone with the music bed or the soundtrack that's going
(08:50):
on with the sound effects, and it's not always just
the music, it's just the sounds of what this world
is that they live in.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, the sounds of bugs in this movie are really intense,
and I love the dogs. The dogs make that seem
so unsettling. It's like all the dogs in town are
all barking at once at night. How can anybody manage it?
But it's yeah, wonderful and nightmarish.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
The clock in their cottage just always ticking, just this
sense of time is coming.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And it wasn't until the second time I watched it
that I realized what the opening credits were going over.
That it's this kind of carousel that they have, and
it's all of these beautiful paintings that they have on
the carousel. And it's such a lovely way of having
the credits and showing these beautiful images and also getting
(09:43):
to see that one of my favorite people, Esther Kombakova,
did the costumes for this. Interestingly, it's listed as a
sixty seven film every place I look, but the copyright
on the actual film is sixty six.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
That's when they shot it, Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I wasn't sure if there was the and release or whatnot.
And then having that little I wish he had subtitles
for this. The OVID quote that opens up the.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Film, I translated it, oh please, So yeah, it's it's
Ovid's version of the myth of Phaetone, and it says,
you ask for great things, Faeetone, but this gift is
beyond your power. Your boyish age cannot achieve it. You
are mortal, but what you desire is not mortal. And
I guess the myth is Fayetone is the mortal son
(10:29):
of the god Apollo. There's different versions of it with
different gods, but in his it's Apollo. And to prove
that he is Apollo's son, he wants to drive Paula's chariot.
So the quote is Apollo saying, like you're too young,
you can't control it. And then the myth, he does
end up taking the chariot and it goes terribly and
(10:49):
causes a lot of destruction and death, and so then
Jupiter throws a lightning bolt at him and kills him.
So another little tid that we're not in for a fun.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Time here, no, And I have to say every version
of this that I've been able to track down horrible subtitles,
really bad subtitles like broken English, bad spelling coming up
sometimes at the wrong time, and I hope that the
DVD of this has better subtitles, and I hope that
(11:21):
there's a blu ray of this on the horizon, because
it looks gorgeous. Even with these bad subtitles, the movie
looks fantastic.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
The Check DVB. I looked into ordering it and having
it shipped, but it didn't have English subtitles, so this
is definitely due for a restoration and proper subtitles.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I really hope one of our boutique disc companies can
see clear to put this out. I think this movie
is really remarkable. It's definitely my favorite new to me
movie of this year. As a filmmaker, Vabra feels incredibly important,
spanning the history a lot of complicated stuff about his life,
(12:04):
but this particular film, and when I was watching it,
I really just went in cold. I did not read
any of the materials in advance. I didn't look up
anything about him. Part of my approach was like, Okay, yes,
it was a very check new wave filmmaking. It definitely
fit into my notion of that. And now I'm really
(12:26):
interested in what really were the styles of check filmmaking
before the New wave, because that's where my clock on
Chech filmmaking begins, and then finding out that Vava's an
older filmmaker. Yes, he has a big influence on Check
new wave filmmakers. It really did have me asking questions
(12:47):
about check style in general, and that, for instance, some
of the writing on him says that his style is
not that unusual. And I didn't pig this movie for
being a big innovative film. But the shooting, cutting and
blocking is impeccable throughout and also very it feels very particular,
(13:10):
very handmade for this particular story, really careful and beautiful work,
even some small things. The sudden cut early on in
the movie from the carousel. It's a carousel, but it's
on these long chains that are I will admit a
little bit frightening to me, which just wonderful, but it's
a very sudden and jarring cut to the razor blade
(13:33):
as he's shaving, and then not long after that, it's
very disorienting that little scythe pricking at his back. Beautiful
shot of his shoulder blades, and then the scythe comes
in and we start revealing the scene moving out. Yeah,
this initial cut from beautiful, romantic but also slightly dangerous
(13:55):
feeling moment to these like sharp objects is really beautiful
visual storytelling, and the movie is full of that all throughout.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Lava. He started making movies in the thirties and was
kind of an avant garde filmmaker, active in kind of
The Left Bank. His kind of second film he worked
on with Alexander Hackenschmied The Future Mister Maya Darin. So
he kind of has these avant garde bona fides that
(14:28):
you know, as time went on, as he worked under
different authoritarian regimes, you can still kind of see little
bits of that in his movies. And then I think,
just yeah, working with the New Way filmmakers, you know,
he learned from them as much as they learned from him,
and he really was able to kind of embrace that
side of himself again, which is really, you know, lovely
(14:50):
and it's too bad it didn't last, but you know
that's the best films of his career, and you know
that he felt himself as well. They were the films
he loved the most that he made.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, there were I think a few filmmakers him and
I can't remember the gentleman's name that did The Devil's
Trap and the Fifth Horseman is Fear. They really got
a shot in the arm when it came to the
New Wave and being able to have a new lease
on life, which was very nice to see. And then
even yeah, posts Prague Spring, I mean witches Hammer or
(15:26):
witch Hammer, whatever you want to call it. It is
such a great film and you know, such a condemnation
of all the show trials and things that had happened
in Czechoslovakia. So even though some people had real problems
with him, he didn't necessarily you know, in the US,
like he didn't name names kind of thing. But he
(15:48):
wasn't as loved by the younger filmmakers after he aligned
himself with more of the Communist government after the Progue Spring.
But I feel that Witch's Hammer really redeems him, at
least in my mind.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I guess the first kind of instance of it is
with Alfred Roddock in nineteen forty nine he made Distant.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Journey, and god, that's such a great film.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, so Bavra was very outspoken, this is bourgeois and
this is a terrible movie, and you know, so they
didn't like ban it, but then you know, they didn't
didn't have a wide release, and it destroyed his film career.
You know, he never could quite get back to film.
So I think a lot of people, especially you know,
(16:32):
because that was before the check nude wave and everything, like,
he was a party man and it did some damage there.
So I think there's kind of a long history of
you know, he is the establishment spencer.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You mentioned the cut to the razor blade and then
the little scythe that goes into his back as he's shaving.
The sudden cut to the grandfather character was pretty startling
as well. The way he is there saying home, we
have to go home and things, and I'm like, okay,
I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I mean, I'm
(17:07):
pretty sure that he's got dementia of some sort. He
just seems pretty out of it. And it really feels
like Vadka as spending most of his life taking care
of his grandfather and putting a lot of other things
on hold. Though he is going to be a teacher,
even though it sounds like that's not necessarily what he
wants to do. It sounds like what his father wants
(17:29):
him to do. And it's nice that we realize from
that opening framing device that that's what he ended up
doing so, he ended up not following his dreams.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Part of the beautiful structure of that scene is that
because there's been a framing device, I initially took the
pictorial elements as being possibly out of time, cross cutting
two different timelines, and we're not. But it gives us
that feeling, which is then very important to understanding the
(18:03):
character of the grandfather, who, in his own weird way,
because of his stroke, is unstuck in time. There are
really wonderful kinds of poetic devices that Devabra is finding
within setting up a very simple scene to get us
a little bit wrong footed in one way that then
gets us very right footed for the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
This is actually the third film that Barbara made with
the writer Frantisha Khrubin, and the movie before this one
the Golden Rennet. It's based on a book, but it's
very much like the timelines are kind of interweaving together.
And it didn't do very like it won you know, awards.
It did great critically, but audiences didn't understand it. So
(18:49):
they really kind of use that experience to refine kind
of the timeline because the poem is very mixed up,
so they kind of made it a little more audio
and is friendly.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I wasn't able to see that movie. Did you manage
to track it down?
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah? There's no English subtitles though, And I could understand
the check, you know, if I'm like Kyd of rewinding
and relistening, So it would have taken me like six
hours to do that, so I kind of just let
it ride, you know. And so I did understand a
fair amount of it. And it's very, yeah, surreal and dreamy,
(19:25):
so maybe it's not totally necessary, you know, it's very beautiful,
and I mean that would be like a great double feature,
I guess, or double package Golden Rennet and Romance Rebeugal.
And it's a very similar story as well. A man
in his fifties who's kind of disappointed with the choices
he's made and goes to visit his home village and
(19:49):
you know, there's a girl he loved where he didn't
show up to their meeting, and you know, so it's
there's very similar themes happening. They're kind of cosmic twins. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I saw there were clips of that in that Golden
sixties episode about Vavra, and they had subtitles on there,
so I was very excited and got to see a
few clips and I said, oh, I want to see this,
but I couldn't find a version of it. So I'm
glad that you were able to see it even without subtitles.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I searched everywhere for subtitles, but so I'm sure somewhere
they exist.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
I am surprised that Tonka doesn't play more of a
role in this film. She's very present in the opening
of this and that's also where we get a lot
of the more avant garde kind of things, the way
that were cutting to her in the river and cutting
back to him on shore as he's reading this book
with this big spider crawling up the book. I thought
(20:44):
it was a really nice image, and just the images
of the insects. And he was talking again in that
Golden Sixties episode about how his cinematographer on this was
very patient and really understood what he was going for
and wanted to capture some of these images of these
insects because they weren't cgi, you know, and they weren't
(21:05):
a little puppets on strings being pulled by a fishing
wire or anything. These are real bugs that they were
capturing and this lyrical you know, I used that word before,
but just the use of nature and these insects and things.
And again going back to the insects, sound of the
grandfather being tied into that almost like he's rotting before
(21:28):
he's dead. I think it's gorgeous. And some of these
images of those two Tanka and Vatchya in the river
floating around very erotic stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
This is a wonderful lesson in eroticism with like minimal
minimal nudity or specific action. And it isn't just this,
it's this scene is the big one and the most obvious.
This is a very horny movie, and in a really
wonderful way, from right out of the gate introducing the
(22:00):
younger versions of our triangle characters. One the very first
shot of this young woman is not necessarily so erotic,
but she is riving. She's absolutely riveting. And then it
does the cuts to the male gaze kind of things,
(22:21):
and then she returns the gaze towards them, and that
little sequence is like a really beautiful kind of reciprocal
kind of experience of at least two people within the
situation seeing noticing each other and wanting to be together
in a way that is done without any words, done
(22:42):
without a whole lot of action, an invitation to ride
the ride as it were, and really beautifully done, and
the introduction of Tanka with the side of touching his back.
The movie is really full of this, and yeah, placing
it within and nature that is not precisely eroticized, but
(23:04):
these images of nature definitely placed them into the natural
flow of things. The whole movie until the end really
takes on a kind of beautiful eroticism. The shapes created
by their faces in relationship to each other in a
number of tight two shots are just beautiful, really lovely,
(23:28):
and the kind of thing that we're in a little
bit more censorious moment commercially within American cinema and whatnot.
These are the kinds of tricks that I wish people
would learn if they're uncomfortable with nudity, if they're uncomfortable
with depicting a sexual behavior, than a movie like this
is a perfect example of how to visualize this kind
(23:52):
of attraction. And yes, the one scene in the river
that one's more traditionally much more traditionally erotic, but the
whole film really has a kind of really beautiful observed
eroticism to it that is extremely important to the story's
ultimate turns. This is a life and death and sense
(24:17):
of disappointment. Again one of the things going back to
the very beginning, looking at the first shot of our
main guy as he's sitting in this the teacher's suit
on the corner of the bar, the sense of a
disappointment is a great tension with all this eroticism and romance.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
It's such a great look that the man that they
cast as a fifty year old voit. He looks like
he's seen things and just you know, just looks haunted.
I'm sure he's, you know, a lovely man, that just
just the structure of his face, he just looks very drawn.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And he looks very much like the young actor. He's
passed well for believability. But then he's also he has
an incredible presence in what I guess is the present tense,
not the flashback of the film. And all the actors
in this movie are incredible. I really love all the performances,
(25:15):
and Voyce's patience with all of them is terrific.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
I'm so glad that there's no doubt in my mind
when we go from the frame into the flashback. Who
is who? You know? I immediately know, Oh, that's the
teacher and that's the bugle player. And I don't have
to wait until, you know, minute twenty five or whatever
for him to pull up the bugle and start playing
(25:42):
for me to go, oh, that's who that is. No,
I immediately I think he's probably wearing the same hat,
he's got the darker features and everything. Yeah. I like
that we are told this without having to have like
a slow dissolve on their face. No saving Private Ryan
and shot right, we go from Matt Damon to old
man kind of thing. No, No, we're smart enough to
(26:03):
realize who these guys are.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
This is also an argument in favor of not doing
aging or de aging kind of stuff. Just cast the
different actors and get the right people and put them
together in a way that makes sense. Because one of
the things that's really important here that obviously actors are
capable point to like Maximon Saido and The Exorcist as
(26:26):
very capable of physically embodying somebody much older than he was.
But again, one of the things that's really important in
the setup and payoff is that these are people with
older bodies it's not just makeup or obviously we do
cgi Martin Scorsese, he has pol tricks among others. But
it is really important to say that we see the
(26:49):
bodies at the ages that they're inhabiting at the different times,
and that yeah, and that the filmmakers make absolutely clear
who everybody is in a way that really is. Other
films have done this, but this is one of the
strongest examples of perfect casting and then framing and presentation
(27:12):
to make clear who is who.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Well, Victor was played by the same actor, both young
and old, and you know he would have been like, yeah,
so he would have been.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I looked it up even because I was like, I
was going, oh, is that makeup? If that's makeup, that's
really good. Wow, I'm wrong, I've gone well right on
one point. That's really interesting because I had a little
bit of a suspicion at first, but I kept watching him.
What a great actor to get on that tractor the
right way. But I really did think I looked it
(27:43):
up on IMDb trying to figure out who is who,
and I guess somehow I mistook that there were I
thought there were two actors for him.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
And he just passed away in twenty twenty five, which
is remarkable that he was one of the few surviving actors.
I don't know if if Tarina was still around or
if she succumbed to disease two months after this movie
was released, but I hope not.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
She's still around.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Okay, good, She's a really remarkable actor. I want to
see her in other films. One of those instant things
of just seeing her with the Merry Go Round and
her reaction and trying to sell it and everything just
instantly she's riveting and then really incredible performance throughout the film.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah, I looked her up because she looked familiar and
she did a lot of like Slovak TV, so that
was the majority of her career. The one movie I
had seen was Celebration in the Botanical Garden. She has
kind of a small part in that, but yeah, it
was kind of surprising that she hasn't really done more
that that we would be familiar with, and that Miriam
(28:50):
kin Torko played Tonka. You know, she's been in quite
a few things that I recognized her from. She's wonderful
with such a I mean, she's not in the movie
a lot, but like we know, who she is.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Oh yeah, she's so striking. Those features are just amazing,
and I love how we keep flashing back to her.
We really enter into people's heads in this movie and
will be part of their flashbacks to other things. Just
a little brief, entire scenes kind of things, but just
little images that will flash through their heads. I really
(29:24):
like that too.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
There's an image of her standing by the water that
had me very worried for her, but said night and
she's gone out there and there's a sense that she's
looking for him and expecting maybe to meet and it's
very brief, but she grabbed my heart. And that's a
tribute to the performance and then to the filmmaking, the
very careful work with each performer. There's a beautiful shot
(29:51):
where the camera moves with her as she's in the
foreground and kind of a little bit dark and out
of focus, and he and the grandfather are in the background,
and as they move, she moves and the camera moves
with her, framing this foreground background. That again, for character
who's not in the movie that much, is really given
a kind of care to make sure that she is
(30:14):
a full part of the story, even if she's not
on that much. Even if her kind of final moment
is just recognizing she's trying to do a seduction and
then recognizes that the grandfather has died and suddenly breaks away.
There's not a huge melodrama that she goes off and
kills herself or something. But she has a really important
(30:35):
place in the overall structure of this story and in
the gentle sense of again that tension between the eroticism
and disappointment then where things go, because yeah, again the
scene with the two of them in the water is
just it's so fun, and then getting called back to
the grandfather. But that's it for them. This is not
(30:58):
a romance that's going to develop. But yeah, all four
points on the because it's not really quite a triangle.
There's a more laid out triangle, but we've got a
we have a rectangle or something on here.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
The scene you were talking about with her in the foreground,
you know, right before that she's you know, says, oh,
you know, Grandma, you don't have to worry about me.
I'm gonna have lunch at the farmers. And it's like
that kind of says everything, like because at the beginning
I kind of wondered, like you know, she's she's clearly
older than Foeita, and it's like, why is she going
after this kid? You know, she cuts grass and nettles.
(31:37):
She's living with her grandma in this little village, working
on a farm, like there's probably not a lot of options.
And then you know, here's a strapping young man comes
home from on vacation and it's like, hey, here's here's
like my shot to have a man here. So it does.
It does really kind of make you feel for her,
(31:58):
especially those scenes where she's waiting by the river, like
you know, she's very very flirty, very you know, thirsty,
but she has this heart to her and like she's
really sad that he's not, like she really does care
for him. So I think at those moments are really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
And this does feel so much. I mean, before we
were recording, I was talking with Spencer about August and
just how August feels like it's I said, a month
of Sundays and so far as that dread of going
back to school. And even though I haven't had a
summer vacation in ooh thirty some years, thirty one years,
(32:39):
I miss that feeling of being on summer break but
then that dread of going back to school or back
to work or any of those things. It feels like
this is in that spot where everything's about to change.
You know, he's home from school, He's there for a
brief amount of time, and then Eventerarina she's there for
(32:59):
briefmount of time because she is a circus folk. They
are saying, oh, well, we're going to be moving off
pretty soon because this area is dead. And also we
find out later in the film, Oh yes, and I've
been promised to Victor as well. Major bombshell that goes
off for him. But what was going to happen? She
(33:19):
was going to have to go on with the circus anyway.
It's not like she was going to be sticking around.
She's not even seventeen in this she says she's going
to be seventeen in a few weeks. I don't know
if she would even be allowed to get married off.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, she or she was seventeen in a few sundays
and then he was almost twenty. It's cute the conversation
they have where like, oh, we could get married and
you know, my dad will buy us our own you know,
kind of circus caravan and you know, we'll stay at
our cabin in the winter. But it's it's not you know,
(33:52):
we know that that's not going to happen. Even even
if this tragic event doesn't take place, you know, it's
not going to well for them.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The relationship has to go through a lot in this
short time, and one of the things that goes through
is when she puts on Victor's hat and then Voita
becomes very angry in that moment, like out of proportion,
and that maybe is the weird moment of tragedy between
them in a way, because what happens with the grandfather
is the natural passing of time and Voida has to
(34:24):
make some choices about attending to his dead grandfather and whatnot.
But if they had left off at a better moment,
then there might even be like some kind of a
more pleasant goodbye that would be possible. And so yeah,
there's something really interesting and that kind of moment. Yes,
he's twenty, but he has the teenagers kind of sharp
(34:45):
anger over such a small kind of thing when she's
actually just trying to be amusing to him. She's trying
to be funny, but because she's wearing the other guy's
hat he can't have it, and that poisons is what
we know is not necessarily going to be such a
wonderful outcome, but doesn't quite have to be as as
bad as it is.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Yeah, I mean, she's clearly, like Pross, you know, she
just found out that morning. She's clearly she's trying to
make light of it, like you know, you can see
she is terrified, and so she's just kind of joking,
but he's taking it personally and being jealous. There was
an interview with Rubin and Fabra and Hrubin felt like
(35:29):
Vota's tragedy was that he didn't try hard enough to
get the girl he loved, whereas Barbara felt like, well,
you know, like you were saying that, no, he had
to attend to his grandfather, and he did the honorable thing.
He was still faithful to her. But I agree like
the moment when he hits her with the hat, like
that's the lynch, Like that's the moment that destroys everything.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Well, and also that that hat is kind of a
sign of rebellion as well, because it was Victor that
told her go get some sour cherries and gives her
the hat to put the sour cherries in and then
rather than taking those back to him, she takes them
to Vatya instead, and it's like, oh, hey, look at me,
and let's have these cherries as kind of literal forbidden fruit.
(36:16):
And then you know when she puts that hat on,
that's when it gets really super angry at her. So
I'm like, oh, well, we went from this light moment
or even this rebellious moment of you know, I'm getting
away with things with Victor, but now it's something completely different.
And yeah, he kind of ruins the whole moment and
(36:37):
ruins any chances that he's had.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
And you know, if he hadn't done that, it's like
if they had parted on good terms, things might have
turned out better, because you know, it looks like they
just missed each other where Like, you know, he shows up,
even though he has to tend to his grandfather, he
still shows up, and he kind of goes to the
caravan and sees their asleep, So you know, I'm sure
(37:00):
his mind he's, oh, I ruined it, she's not coming.
I better go. But then she does show up, and
then I'm sure in her head it's like, well, he
doesn't want me any more I'm going to go back
home instead of it might have fought harder to connect
if that hadn't happened, which.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Is kind of the same thing that he had done
with Tanka, where she's out there waiting for him, thinking
that he's going to show up, and he never does either,
so he stands her up and he probably feels stood
up by Terarina. Yeah, it's just it's tragic, and it's
so bittersweet in the best way that that term can
be used, because you're sitting here, you know, on the
(37:40):
verge of tears, or at least I was watching this
horrible thing happen, but at the same time like, oh,
you know, this is just the way that I had
to happen and play out. And then when you find
what actually happened with Trena afterwards, that she basically dies
of a broken heart, that really just is the real
kick in the teeth.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
The end of this film, the last shot of her
riding with Victor in the whatever that carriage is that
they're on at the end of the circus carriages, they're
headed to the next place. Again to her performance, very
simple in putting on a face and an affect a
wild riding. But it's really heartbreaking that last image of her,
(38:25):
because again, we could still be an unhappy moment, but
if she cried in blue Kisses, that's a very different
kind of an ending. But this sense of a real heartbreak,
as you say, is something that comes into her character,
her performance and that last Yeah, that this last image,
(38:48):
especially going against the first image. I do think that's
its own. We have a frame narrative, but then there's
also a kind of frame of how she's presented as
a character incredibly rant, vibrant and full of life and
then really hurt and deadened in that in the final
(39:12):
shot of her, really beautiful and sad.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I don't know if it's the circus setting or not,
but there were times where I was reminded of Lestrata
with Victor doing that Anthony Quinn role.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The hat moment is actually like a little bit of
a Julietta Messina thing. Yeah, really interesting. You're reminding me
how much I love Lestrata. It's a really beautiful and
again I keep saying careful, but it is. It's a
careful movie, and it's not a big grand plan movie,
but it's observant and there are particular choices that are
(39:48):
made that have they carry the weight of more of
a grand plan, But then the way that the action
unfolds is so much more lively and casual and unpre predictable.
And my feelings at times of that I could predict
where the story was headed, I wasn't right. I'm picking
up on little melodramatic cues that remind me how American
(40:11):
my view of things is. Maybe it might be more
predictable to a check audience used to a certain kind
of storytelling, but really human and paying attention to all
these little moments and little changes that are that have
the intensity of melodrama without having the structure and the
(40:33):
kind of wild repercussions of melodrama. Very small drama here
can be very tragic as well.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
You know, remind me a lot of Thomas Hardy, his
books and the films based on them. With him, there's
this sense of like injustice and you know, this is
not how things should be. We should treat women better,
but you don't get that with this film. It's kind
of like this is how it is and this is
(41:03):
how it will be. So that part does feel very
check about it, you know, like where if it was
American you know, of course it would have some great
romantic moment or you know, one last beautiful kiss or something,
but it's just like, no, she is assaulted and then
they just go off and she dies and Voita lives
(41:24):
in regret his.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Life for his entire freaking life, and Victor's not too
much better off either. No, the episode, that Golden Sixties episode,
Don Vava, he ends with him talking about how much
he dislikes Hollywood films, and he's just talking about how
they're great grafts people, but you know, they're just not filmmakers,
(41:46):
and he drops Felini's name. He talks about Gosh Karne
and Felini and Bergmann and a few other filmmakers, and
he's just like, these are the guys that make the films. Okay,
I can kind of see where you're coming from. Of course,
growing up with American films, a diet of purely American
films for so long, I find a lot to love
(42:08):
about them. But yeah, he was not a big fan
of what was coming over. And I think the whole
idea of this being based on a poem and not
having a traditional structure, because in between those frames, it's
not like we have those things where we're like, okay,
well here's this love triangle and oh, here's the dark
woman Tonka who comes in and upsets the apple cart,
(42:30):
possibly literally, and just you know, like we're not sitting
there following these beats, you know, the whole thing of
him hitting Terina.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
With the hat.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
You'd be like, oh, well, this is that moment in
the romantic comedy where they have a misunderstanding, and we're
going to go for maybe ten fifteen minutes, and then
we're going to find out that, you know, oh, she
actually really wants him back and he wants her back
and all these things, and everybody's going to hug and
we're going to have a great time by the end
of this. No, it is just one tragedy after another.
(43:02):
I mean, think about how many times we see people
caring for their ailing grandfather in movies. Not very often,
and the grandfather is a major character. Every once in
a while, the dad will stop by. That's always interesting
when he comes in. But yeah, this does not follow
typical beats of narrative whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, to go to the Hollywood point, I'm gonna pick
on Hitchcock and not necessarily just Hitchcock, But I had
this thought while I was watching it. Hitchcock had that's
saying that a movie is like life, but with the
boring parts removed, and it's you got to ask a
big question about what's boring, And for instance, the answer
to that would be taking care of your grandfather's of
(43:44):
course after and making sure that his body is well
cared for and that you do the right thing. An
American film often will would for instance, follow through with
something like that, but it would reduce it to a montage.
And this is a movie where we spend time on
every pure and assume that every gesture that is in
the movie is not boring. That's one of the things
(44:05):
about the whole idea of the boring parts removed. There
are a lot of parts of life that we might
think of as boring because they could take time, or
they're unpleasant or difficult, but in fact, this is a
movie about how anything, any particular moment could be full
and definitely not boring. And it's a matter of not
(44:25):
eliminating the boring parts, but of choosing what you are
going to present and for how long and how you
pay attention. And one of the I think one of
the directorial tactics for this over the course of the film,
and I've not seen other films by Vava, but the
(44:46):
intimate movement with each character. We do get our share
of close ups, and we get our share of wide shots,
but the meat and potatoes level of visually telling the
story is a kind of roving camera that moves among
the people and from one to another in different moments
and really pays. The distance of the camera is decided
(45:10):
by what is necessary to see of the person in
an intimate way. That's again granted to every character except
maybe the father. The father is the figure in big,
wide shots for the most part, but he also has
a smaller part of the movie, and maybe also there's
a way of that that represents a psychology. But every
(45:32):
single other major character is given a kind of beautiful
intimacy of deciding where the camera is going to go,
deciding how the camera is going to frame them.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Well, and speaking of intimate, this kind of reminds me
of the film we talked about three years ago, intimate lighting.
There was something maybe it was the what was it?
Didn't he play Cello and that one the main character,
and there's the rival band members kind of thing. So
as soon as I saw Victor with the flugel horn
of the bugle, I was like, oh, we just watched
(46:03):
something recently three years ago with musical instruments and kind
of a return to the village kind of thing. So
it's like, oh, okay, that would probably make a nice
double feature as well.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
There's a saying every check is a musician. I think
it's just something that that's just common for them that
to have, you know, play some kind of instrument. You know,
they're not concerned about, oh you have to go to
school or conservatory. Just no, just play it, sit in
the pub with your friends and you know, with your
(46:35):
accordion and your bugle. And I wanted to mention like
Vavra and hru Being they were about the same age.
Who Being was born in nineteen ten and Barbara was
nineteen eleven, so they were fifty five and fifty six
when they made this, and it was really important to
them to make a movie about people of their generation
who went through both world wars and went through all
(46:57):
this upheaval. And I mean, you see, they don't really
explicitly say when the movie takes place that the poem
is like nineteen thirty, thirty three, and thirty four. The
poem is written in nineteen sixtyes, so you figure it's
probably like early thirties and then the present day's early sixties.
But I think just the way they handle things, the
(47:18):
fact that Voita does, he does go and be a teacher,
he does take care of his grant. You know, he
does what his father wants him to do. The check
new wave films, it's the children are rebelling against their parents,
and you know Voita kind of wants to. He has
those inclinations, but he does follow the path. And so
I think, even though the movie doesn't state explicitly when
(47:42):
it is like, it really does only it really only
could take place during that time period. I can't imagine
a story present day being like that or being responsible.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
And that's sadder than the story in this movie. In
a way. Viously, American storytelling and artwork is very wedded
to notions of rebellion, a kind of elemental sense that
you have to rebel and not simply against momentary politics,
but rebelling against larger structures where you could end up
(48:16):
in life how things go. And there's especially given what
they have lived through in the time span of this movie,
and without mentioning any of it, obviously the audience in
Czech Republic is going to be very aware Czechoslovakia at
the time. Yeah, there's the sense of the time, and
there's the sense of what you do, and maybe a
bit of an autobiographical way. There's a disappointment in doing
(48:39):
the thing that was expected and socially necessary and everything.
But that disappointment isn't necessarily the same thing as a
huge injustice. The real disappointment is about the interpersonal choices
that are made, rather than Ah, God, I ended up
a teacher and I didn't want to be a teacher.
He could have run away with the circus, which maybe
(49:00):
that's an interesting story, but not having run away with
the circus is not the main source of the disappointment.
And even if he's disappointed by quote unquote only being
a teacher later in life, that that's not the worst
that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is that
slap with the hat.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
I really enjoyed just learning more about well about Barbara,
but also frontishek Rubin. He's someone where I guess his
name isn't brought up so much for us Americans, but
he starred as a poet, and then when his daughter
was born, he got really interested in children's literature, so
(49:40):
he started writing fairy tales, which that led him to
working with the animator Yhnka, and so he started going
into short film and he did plays and books. So
he's very present in Czech culture and in film. He
ended up writing the screenplay for Correl Zemon's Invention for Destruction,
(50:04):
just an incredible movie. And then besides these three films
he made with Barbra, there was a fourth called Us
that they wanted to do after Witch Hammer, but the
political circumstances had changed and so they weren't allowed. He
died in seventy one, so Fabra did end up making
(50:26):
that film in the eighties, when I guess things had
settled down a bit. He also has a bit of
a role in film. He wrote a play of the
Check version of Beauty and the Beast, which through various
iterations became your eye Hers's Beauty and the Beast. So
I really loved learning more about him and his work.
(50:49):
It's a shame, you know. Check Definitely check out Invention
for Destruction if you haven't seen it. Yeah, if this
film and Golden Rennett could get released. You know, he's
really someone that should be studied in the lest more so,
I really enjoyed learning about him. It was a nice opportunity.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Well, and I appreciate all of the stunning materials that
you brought to the table as well. I really can't
thank you enough for doing that.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
I love having this excuse to go look at books
and by books I don't need, but they're really fun to.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Read and.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Translate OVID from check.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
They're really great reading. I have to thank you. Yeah,
they're terrific stuff to read, really fascinating. And this I
have to say, this has been a great introduction to
Babra And then I'm sorry, Emily, can you say that
say for me the name of the poet.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
I'm sotry Oven, so like Kruben hr u.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
B I n. Yeah. Really an incredible introduction to Babara
and Ruben. Definitely both artists that I want to pay
more attention to in the future.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Well, I just thought today, def Crocodile is going to
be putting out Krakatite Fabras Select nineteen forty eight I
believe movie, which is excellent. So that's an opportunity to
get more into BABRAA.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
All right, we're going to take a break and play
preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
Looking for something superior to streaming, a place with more
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check out Scarecrow Videos Rent by mail service. Select from
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(52:38):
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scarecrow dot com and rediscover the wonders of physical media.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
Ever m f f f.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
H m hm hm h m hmm.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
That's right. We'll be back next week with a look
at Jan Smackmyers Conspirators of Pleasure. Until then, I want
to thank my co Emily and Spencer. So Emily, what's
the latest with you, ma'am?
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Will have happened by the time this episode comes out,
But I am going to be introducing ri I hers Is,
Beauty and the Beast and the Ninth Heart for Super
Horirama's midnight movie screenings at Music Box Theater on August
fifteenth and sixteenth. Then we might be doing some more
Check films in the future, so I watch out for
super Horima. I am going to be on two episodes
(56:27):
of Hour Juan on One with Doctor Ac on YouTube
in November and December. And I started a blog kind
of about just studying Check and learning about Check culture
and movies. So that's at Emily Dashbarney dot com. And
I wrote a bit about odacar Vava's film as well
as watching this, and I'm going to try to keep
(56:48):
watching his movies and just you know, it's kind of
a nice survey through the history of Check film getting
to watch his movies and.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
Spencer, how about yourself, sir.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
I have a short film that I made several years
ago is now airing on Means TV. It's just shown up.
It's the film itself is I shouldn't have given it
such a long title. It's a partial theory of commodity
fetishism and three scenes plus epilogue. Pretty much the synopsis
is in the title. So the downside of a long
title like that is obvious, but the upside is that
(57:20):
I just told you what it's about and how it works.
See title for synopsis. So that's coming up and crawling
towards the finish line with a feature and hoping I
can finish that sooner than later, because I have another
short that I want to ruin my life making in
the coming year. That's what we learned from this movie, right,
find a new little way to ruin my life with
(57:40):
the choices I've made. Yeah, but this has been great.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:44):
Well, thank you and thanks again guys for being on
the show, and thanks to everybody for listening. Do you
want to support physical media and get great movies in
the mail, head on over to scarecrow dot com and
try Scarecrow Videos incredible rent by mail service, the largest
publicly accessible collection in the world. You'll find films there
entirely unavailable anywhere else. Get what you want, when you
(58:07):
want it, without the scrolling, and yes, of course they
carry romance or bugle in their fine selection of films.
If you want to hear more of me shooting off
my mouth, check out some of the other shows that
I work on. They are all available at Wirdingwaymedia dot com.
Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to
join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection booth.
Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over
(58:29):
the world
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
S
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