Thursday, September 25, 2003
Loves of a Blonde [Lásky jedné plavovlásky] (1965)
Directed by Milos Forman
Milos Forman is probably best known for One Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest which won 5 Oscars, including Best Director. His debut is Loves of a Blonde, a black and white, part social satire, part romance comedy.
The setting is the small town of Zruc, where the population is made up of women who works in a shoe factory; and the ratio is many as 16 of them to 1 man. The manager believes that this is a problem and requests the army officer to send in men to “placate” these women. His well-intention turns out to be a disaster as they sent in a troop of reservists whom the young girls calls “grandfathers”.
Andula (Hana Brejchová) is our female protagonist who has a fling with a military men in the forest when she ties a tie around a tree in the forest. While she relates her tale to a friend and shows a photograph of a younger boy who has given her a ring, it is apparent she was talking about two different people. Her behaviour contradicts her encounter with piano player, Milda (Vladimír Pucholt) as she appears virginal and untrusting.
Dave Kher in the Criterion DVD release compares Love to Truffaut’s 400 Blows when it first premiered at the New York film festival, calling it “fresh” and “spontaneous”. Its spontaneity is derived with the way that Forman edit the scenes such that they flow casually. As the girls were sitting at the dance hall; who will be picked up later by three reservist men, their exchange of glances was punctuated with shots of other men and women in the dance hall who are either drinking or looking glumly.
The cinematography is in contrast with the later scenes as Milda seduces Andula to his room. Andula is reserved, naked with her back facing the camera as Milda caresses her affectionately. Their lovemaking reveals Andula’s anxieties which is followed by playful innocent post coital bantering. The classical portrait shot of the positioning of the bodies with Milda on Andula’s crotch; and the girl covering her breasts with her hands across, is equally artistically mesmerizing. As Milda explains Picasso’s paintings and compares Andula’s body to a guitar, their intimacies exchanges are a visual romantic poetry to the image. This is a exquisite and natural scene that embodies the ideology of pure love.
Andula hitchhikes her way to visit Milda in Prague. The boy was however away and she had to sit between his parents. The father (Josef Sebanek) lets her wait while the mother (Milada Jezková) is worried and goes on and on about how silly Milda had invited a girl he barely knew home. Milda’s parents contribute to some of the film’s best humor as typical folks who are unaware of their son’s activities outside the house. When Milda arrives home, astonished to see Andula, he was dragged into his parent’s bed because the mother would not allow him to sleep with her.
The bed becomes a family battleground in contrast to the earlier situation of Andula and Milda making love. The analogy of Milda being spared from Andula; by sleeping with his parents, reverts the patriarchal concept of boy conquering the female, and proving his manhood. Andula weeps as she hears their conversation from the outside. Not only has she been betrayed by love; she has been shut off from integrating into traditional family life which will promise happiness. Ironically, this was a negative depiction of the family.
Her only option, after trying to break free from the town’s monotonous life, is to go back to the factory, and pretends (tells her friend that she was well-liked by the family and will go back next time) that she will have a future she could look forward to.
This review of Loves of a Blonde, based on the Criterion DVD, comes with an interview with the director himself, providing some insight on Milos’ influences – The French New Wave, in particular; as well as anecdotes on making the movie: such as differentiating between trained e.g. Vladimír Pucholt and untrained individuals e.g. Milada Jezková. He talks about his improvisational directing style by giving actors little time to memorise scripts; as well as using two cameras for the dance hall scene. Extras include a deleted scene where Milda tries to sneak into a house for a rendezvous with a girl he had met at a dance hall.
Directed by Milos Forman
Milos Forman is probably best known for One Flew Over The Cuckoo Nest which won 5 Oscars, including Best Director. His debut is Loves of a Blonde, a black and white, part social satire, part romance comedy.
The setting is the small town of Zruc, where the population is made up of women who works in a shoe factory; and the ratio is many as 16 of them to 1 man. The manager believes that this is a problem and requests the army officer to send in men to “placate” these women. His well-intention turns out to be a disaster as they sent in a troop of reservists whom the young girls calls “grandfathers”.
Andula (Hana Brejchová) is our female protagonist who has a fling with a military men in the forest when she ties a tie around a tree in the forest. While she relates her tale to a friend and shows a photograph of a younger boy who has given her a ring, it is apparent she was talking about two different people. Her behaviour contradicts her encounter with piano player, Milda (Vladimír Pucholt) as she appears virginal and untrusting.
Dave Kher in the Criterion DVD release compares Love to Truffaut’s 400 Blows when it first premiered at the New York film festival, calling it “fresh” and “spontaneous”. Its spontaneity is derived with the way that Forman edit the scenes such that they flow casually. As the girls were sitting at the dance hall; who will be picked up later by three reservist men, their exchange of glances was punctuated with shots of other men and women in the dance hall who are either drinking or looking glumly.
The cinematography is in contrast with the later scenes as Milda seduces Andula to his room. Andula is reserved, naked with her back facing the camera as Milda caresses her affectionately. Their lovemaking reveals Andula’s anxieties which is followed by playful innocent post coital bantering. The classical portrait shot of the positioning of the bodies with Milda on Andula’s crotch; and the girl covering her breasts with her hands across, is equally artistically mesmerizing. As Milda explains Picasso’s paintings and compares Andula’s body to a guitar, their intimacies exchanges are a visual romantic poetry to the image. This is a exquisite and natural scene that embodies the ideology of pure love.
Andula hitchhikes her way to visit Milda in Prague. The boy was however away and she had to sit between his parents. The father (Josef Sebanek) lets her wait while the mother (Milada Jezková) is worried and goes on and on about how silly Milda had invited a girl he barely knew home. Milda’s parents contribute to some of the film’s best humor as typical folks who are unaware of their son’s activities outside the house. When Milda arrives home, astonished to see Andula, he was dragged into his parent’s bed because the mother would not allow him to sleep with her.
The bed becomes a family battleground in contrast to the earlier situation of Andula and Milda making love. The analogy of Milda being spared from Andula; by sleeping with his parents, reverts the patriarchal concept of boy conquering the female, and proving his manhood. Andula weeps as she hears their conversation from the outside. Not only has she been betrayed by love; she has been shut off from integrating into traditional family life which will promise happiness. Ironically, this was a negative depiction of the family.
Her only option, after trying to break free from the town’s monotonous life, is to go back to the factory, and pretends (tells her friend that she was well-liked by the family and will go back next time) that she will have a future she could look forward to.
This review of Loves of a Blonde, based on the Criterion DVD, comes with an interview with the director himself, providing some insight on Milos’ influences – The French New Wave, in particular; as well as anecdotes on making the movie: such as differentiating between trained e.g. Vladimír Pucholt and untrained individuals e.g. Milada Jezková. He talks about his improvisational directing style by giving actors little time to memorise scripts; as well as using two cameras for the dance hall scene. Extras include a deleted scene where Milda tries to sneak into a house for a rendezvous with a girl he had met at a dance hall.
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE
Directed by Michael Moore
If you want dirt about Michael Moore, you can visit the National Rifles Association website which features a lengthy review on Bowling For Columbine, where the director was lambasted for distorting truth in his documentary. Other American critic’s reviews generally paint Bowling For Columbine as a well-liked popular and critical work questioning the reason behind American violence and gun culture.
Like The Magdalene Sisters, I was caught with mixed emotions for Bowling For Columbine even without having read the reviews.
For a documentary that runs two hours, it is an amazing bag of goodies. You get comic cartoon footage entitled, “A Brief History of America” which basically traces the story of how America embraced guns as a right to their second amendment; and the formation of Ku Klux Clan.
You get “A Wonderful World” soundtrack running along to a series of grisly images accompanied by subtitles on the horrors and atrocities that America has committed against other nations. The last of these images is one of September 11 tragedy; and it is subtitled, “Osama bin Laden used expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.” The sequence couldn’t have been more thought-provoking.
In his film, he seems to seek the reason for America’s homicide related to gun use; which is more than ten thousand last year; as compared to other European countries that borders on two digits. His scrambled style becomes hard to follow after a while as he intercuts between Littleton Columbine incident where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold engaged in a massacre student shootings while interviewing other people, who can hopefully answers his questions.
Despite it being tagged as a movie to highlight the issue on American’s gun culture, Bowling For Columbine, unearths many more unpleasant facts about the nation. It questions media which puts fear into people by broadcasting violence on news. It unearths racism through interviews with producer of Cops and show how deep seated the dilemma is. It questions the welfare system by burrowing into the tragedy, where a 6 year black old boy gunned down another 6 year old white girl, Kayla Rolland, in school. The mother was Tamarla Owens who has to work two jobs and still ends up evicted by her landlord. The boy was made to live with his uncle, where he picked up the gun and committed murder.
His confrontation with K Mart with the aid of two students crippled by the Columbine shooting is probably his greatest victory in making the chain withdrew ammunition that could be easily purchased. The interview with Charlton Heston is laconic but when the man is unable to provide an answer to his difficult questions and choose to walk away, not looking back, Moore follows stridently, before putting the picture of Kayla Rolland on a pillar column.
While the review by NRA accuse Moore of adopting some questionable ethical and editing techniques, NRA is still unable to unravel the mystery of the high crime rates related to gun usage in America. NRA is unable to debunk certain social myths that Moore was questioning in the documentary, which comes back to the point of the documentary - its validity as a testament to the great American myth – if America is truly a free, fearless, colour-less society that it thinks it is.
Sure, we question his credibility but sometimes, to nitpick is to miss the point.
You can read NRA's printer friendly version of the review here.
Directed by Michael Moore
If you want dirt about Michael Moore, you can visit the National Rifles Association website which features a lengthy review on Bowling For Columbine, where the director was lambasted for distorting truth in his documentary. Other American critic’s reviews generally paint Bowling For Columbine as a well-liked popular and critical work questioning the reason behind American violence and gun culture.
Like The Magdalene Sisters, I was caught with mixed emotions for Bowling For Columbine even without having read the reviews.
For a documentary that runs two hours, it is an amazing bag of goodies. You get comic cartoon footage entitled, “A Brief History of America” which basically traces the story of how America embraced guns as a right to their second amendment; and the formation of Ku Klux Clan.
You get “A Wonderful World” soundtrack running along to a series of grisly images accompanied by subtitles on the horrors and atrocities that America has committed against other nations. The last of these images is one of September 11 tragedy; and it is subtitled, “Osama bin Laden used expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.” The sequence couldn’t have been more thought-provoking.
In his film, he seems to seek the reason for America’s homicide related to gun use; which is more than ten thousand last year; as compared to other European countries that borders on two digits. His scrambled style becomes hard to follow after a while as he intercuts between Littleton Columbine incident where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold engaged in a massacre student shootings while interviewing other people, who can hopefully answers his questions.
Despite it being tagged as a movie to highlight the issue on American’s gun culture, Bowling For Columbine, unearths many more unpleasant facts about the nation. It questions media which puts fear into people by broadcasting violence on news. It unearths racism through interviews with producer of Cops and show how deep seated the dilemma is. It questions the welfare system by burrowing into the tragedy, where a 6 year black old boy gunned down another 6 year old white girl, Kayla Rolland, in school. The mother was Tamarla Owens who has to work two jobs and still ends up evicted by her landlord. The boy was made to live with his uncle, where he picked up the gun and committed murder.
His confrontation with K Mart with the aid of two students crippled by the Columbine shooting is probably his greatest victory in making the chain withdrew ammunition that could be easily purchased. The interview with Charlton Heston is laconic but when the man is unable to provide an answer to his difficult questions and choose to walk away, not looking back, Moore follows stridently, before putting the picture of Kayla Rolland on a pillar column.
While the review by NRA accuse Moore of adopting some questionable ethical and editing techniques, NRA is still unable to unravel the mystery of the high crime rates related to gun usage in America. NRA is unable to debunk certain social myths that Moore was questioning in the documentary, which comes back to the point of the documentary - its validity as a testament to the great American myth – if America is truly a free, fearless, colour-less society that it thinks it is.
Sure, we question his credibility but sometimes, to nitpick is to miss the point.
You can read NRA's printer friendly version of the review here.
