Showing posts with label Czechoslovakia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Czechoslovakia. Show all posts

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders aka Valerie a Týden Divů (1970)


A thief awakens Valerie, just 13, taking earrings left to her by her mother. By morning, the earrings have been returned, Valerie's first period has begun, and a troupe and a missionary have arrived in her Medieval town. The thief is Orick; he reports to a cloaked constable who may also be the missionary. Attention to sexuality is everywhere: Valerie's grandmother's puritanical nature, the missionary's sermon to the town's virgins, the parish priest's attempt to seduce Valerie, and lusty adults at play. Valerie's nascent sexuality puts her in great danger. Can she navigate the passage from innocence to experience, a route teaming with vampires, a murderer, and an obscure family tree? (via IMDB)


Monday, January 21, 2013

The Cremator (1968)


Karl Kopfrkingl works at a crematorium in Prague. Obsessed with his duties, he quotes from The Tibetan Book of the Dead and believes that he is liberating the souls of the departed. The Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia allows him to indulge his increasingly deranged ideas for the ‘salvation of the world.’

Directed by Juraj Herz, the Cremator is a seriously disturbing film and a deeply probing study of the fascist mindset.