Tag Archives: Czech cinema

The Good Soldier Shweik (1956)

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Or, to give it its original Czech name, Dobrý voják Švejk.

I had stumbled across this film, highly rated as a satirical anti-war comedy set during World War I, and given that I enjoyed an earlier Czech comedy I’d seen (The Firemen’s Ball), I decided I should give this one a try as well.  The film is based on an unfinished novel by the Czech humorist Jaroslav Hašek, who intended this as a collection of vignettes and incidents centering round a World War I soldier. The novel, despite being incomplete, has since been translated into more than sixty languages, making it the most-translated Czech novel ever. It has been adapted for screen several times, including once in German, and more recently, in 2018, in English.

The film begins in Sarajevo in 1914 with a dramatic event: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There’s the gun firing, the troops parading down the street, the band playing as they march—and the archduke crumpling over in his carriage.

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Hoří, má Panenko (1967)

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Or, in English, The Firemen’s Ball.

I came across this film some months back, and since its description sounded enticing, I got it. Ever since, I’ve been meaning to watch it; finally, about a week back, having written up the post for a landmark anniversary I wanted to celebrate (William Holden’s birth centenary), I figured it was finally time I got around to watching The Firemen’s Ball. And it was then, just a few days back, that I discovered that the film’s director, Miloš Forman, had passed away, on the 13th of April.

To Hollywood audiences, Forman is known for Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, both of which won him Oscars for Best Director. But before he left his homeland Czechoslovakia and moved to the US, Forman was a well-established director in Czech cinema too, being generally acknowledged as a important personality of Czech New Wave Cinema. His first Czech-language colour film was The Firemen’s Ball, a comedy that satirized the corruption pervading Communist Eastern Europe at the time.

The film begins sombrely. In an office at a fire department, a group of senior firemen have gathered to discuss something important. A finely crafted and engraved piece (a fireman’s axe) is being passed around the table and admired by all. The annual firemen’s ball is coming up, and this item is to be presented on the occasion of the ball to the fire department’s ex-President, who is going to be turning 86.

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