Pearls of the Deep
1966
A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression offered by the movement’s versatile directors.
SYNOPSIS: Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fruitful, fascinating, and radical. With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of fearless directors—including eventual Oscar winners Miloš Forman and Ján Kadár—began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state. A defining work was the 1966 omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which introduced five of the movement’s greatest voices: Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, and Evald Schorm. This series presents that title, along with five other crucial works that followed close on its heels, one from each of those filmmakers—some dazzlingly experimental, some arrestingly realistic, all singular expressions from a remarkable time and place.
Collector’s set includes
Daisies
1966
Daisies is an aesthetically and politically adventurous film that’s widely considered one of the great works of feminist cinema.
A Report on the Party and Guests
1966
In Jan Němec’s surreal fable, the weekend countryside frolic of an ordinary group of men and women is rudely transformed into a lesson in political hierarchy.
Return of the Prodigal Son
1967
Evald Schorm was one of the most outspokenly political of the movement’s filmmakers. This raw psychological drama about an engineer unable to adjust to the world around him following a suicide attempt is at heart a scathing portrait of social alienation and moral compromise.
Capricious Summer
1968
Jiří Menzel directed this funny and reflective idyll about three middle-aged bourgeois men whose carefree summer, occupied by little more than fishing, drinking, and eating, is interrupted by the arrival of young traveling circus performers.
The Joke
1969
Jaromil Jireš’s brilliantly fragmentary adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel jumps between the past and present to tell the Kafkaesque tale of Ludvik, a scientist who, in the 1950s, was expelled from the Communist Party.