Home Care ( Domaci pece).

Czech filmmaker Slavek Horak début feature film, which he wrote and acts in, was inspired by stories of his own mother’s life. Home Care (2015) was the Czech entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards and stars Alena Mihulova as Viasta, South Moravia's very own Mother Teresa, a dedicated home care nurse and tireless domestic goddess, a woman who puts every body first even frogs! Lada (Bolek Polivka) Viasta husband is like many men virtually useless and has not kissed his wife since their wedding day and baring in mind that they have a grownup daughter who is about to be married that could be construed a very long time! Then one rainy evening whilst getting an unsolicited lift home on the back of Speedy's motor bike she is involved in an accident that not only changed her physical well being but also her outlook on life when she realises that she must now become reliant on help from all these that she has spent most of her life helping.

 

Viasta the dedicated home care nurse....

....and tireless domestic goddess.

On the surface this is an emotional journey involving a sad hard-pressed woman who owns very little, other than her self-respect. But it's not a sad film, yes we see the struggle that Viasta has to endure just to get through her working day, yes we see how impossible it is for members of her close family to demonstrate the love this woman deserves. Even allowing for all this emotional hardship she tackles life with a great sense of humour, and it's the underlying bittersweet humour that carries this highly recommended look at Czech working class life.  

Conspirators of Pleasure.

The Post Women...

Until the middle of 2011 Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), directed by Czech surrealist and animator Jan Svankmajer, was not available in the UK. Now thanks to New Wave Films it has been released as part of a three-film box set available singularly for rent via Love Film. The film combines live action with the use of both classical animation of a rag mannequin and a rag doll. There’s no dialogue only background music. This is another of my much admired black comedies which have recently included my film of the year Holy Motors (2012), Kaurismakie’s Calamari Union (1985), God Bless America (2011), the Norwegian crime thriller Jackpot (2011) and of course the UK’s very own Sightseers (2012). This time it’s about people governed only by the pleasure principle, in Svankmajer own words, ‘a film about freedom’.

Mr Pivonka and ...

Mrs Loubalova...

The central motif of the film is the sado masochistic relationship between Mr. Pivonka and Mrs. Loubalova. This relationship, realised by means of magic and with the help of a kind of grotesque ritual voodoo, is coupled with the stories of minor characters including a post women, a television newsreader, a newsagent and a police office.  All kindred spirits that are connected through their obsession with pleasure/desire/freedom.

The Police Officer...

Influenced by the writings of the Marquis de Sade it has a theme that has been borrowed from Sigmund Freud. Freud said that in each of us there is a permanent conflict between the pleasure principle (which is anti social, non conformist, and drives us to pursue our desire and freedom, ignoring social scruples) and the reality principle (which is the moralising, limiting, leveling repression brought by society, upbringing and school). According to Freud, healthy psychological development requires a balance between these two principles. Clearly the characters in this film are dominated by the pleasure principle!

The Newsagent....

Its certainly not your standard film and indeed not for everyone, not so much a film about sex, as a film about human nature which manifests it self in various sexual pleasures. Unusually an erotic film that manages without scenes of sexual intercourse! Some wonderfully lewd 18^th century pornographic drawings are used as opening credits introducing something that completely unconventional, but extremely entertaining.

and the television Newsreader.

Daisies

“This film is dedicated to all those whose sole source of indignation is a trampled on trifle”

That statement sets the scene for an unpredictable movie that lacks any conventional narrative and is more like a string of outrageous set pieces. Daisies (1966) directed by Vera Chytilova is one of the key works of The Czechoslovak New Wave, a term used for the early Czech films of the 1960’s. As well as Chytilova the movement included Milos Forman best known for the award winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).

Daisies involves two uninhibited seventeen year olds both named Marie who decide that because the world is bad then there entitled to be free of all restrictions. One of the best of the set pieces is when looking for food they stumble upon a feast presumably set out for communist leaders. They eat the food, make a mess and destroy the room. It was because of this scene the Czech authorities banned the film!

The movie, which preceded the Prague Spring of 1968, has been described as a madcap and aggressive feminist farce. This movie attempts to dispel the feminist belief that cinema is a “cultural practice representing myths about women and femininity” a criticism mainly directed, as you would expect, against Hollywood films. Although the director explained in an interview in The Guardian in 2000 that she does not believe in feminism per se, but in individualism. "If there's something you don't like, don't keep to the rules - break them. I'm an enemy of stupidity and simple-mindedness in both men and women and I have rid my living space of these traits."

Said to be a major influence on world cinema it’s a refreshingly uncompromising film, an example of a director who’s prepared to take risks. An illustration of something completely different.