Wolf Trap (1957) - Jeri Weiss 

A precursor to the New Wave this lacks the humor of those films and political allegory, but it shows that even before he had a proper movement to latch onto Jeri Weiss was an extremely competent director. The film's style borrows much from traditional Eastern European films of the era, particularly Hungarian and Russian cinema. The camera moves frequently, and a great deal of the film is photographed in wide angle lenses. However like many films outside of major film producing centers, the widescreen was yet to quite catch on. 

The film's premise is simple enough. A married couple adopts an orphan (although rather far along in her adolesence) and well there becomes a little strife. The wife in this couple is older, fatter, uglier, and more domineering, and the husband well you can't blame him for finding his new foster child something to behold. The film is extraordinary in its casting, not just in looks but in acting ability as well. Jana is equal parts beautiful and emotional. You almost want to weep for her throughout. Her devotion is mixed as well. Despite also falling in love with her stepfather she nevertheless feels a daughterly aattachment to her stepmother, who she calls auntie throughout the film. This gives the film an odd differentiation and made me think for the first 20 minutes or so that the couple that adopted her weren't married, but siblings. 

We're not supposed to like Auntie, and Weiss does a great job of setting her up early. She recognizes the grace of Jana and has aspirations to make her more "ladylike". However her treatment of her housekeepers is abominable and her smothering of her husband is wretched. She gets more intolerable as the film progresses, but we're almost never on her side, and this can also be due to the casting. Robert is just smart, talented, dignified, and moderately young enough to be a romantic lead, and something that not only Jana would be attracted to (following some sort of father fixation) but also make someone like her aunt monstrously attached to him.

Watching this film without the pretext of a film movement or style you wonder exactly how its going to play out. Traditional American cinema would offer some devious murder plot as the only way out, however as I've already explained there is a geniune attachment that Jana feels for her aunt. In a more liberated context a divorce would have worked wonders. However this film is stuck in the middle between melodrama and liberated cinema. Perhaps there is a tie in to the present Communist regime and the message isn't revolution, but quiet patience and everything will eventually work out? Most Czech films are comments on the political climate disguised as farces or melodrama, so read in this light Aunt Klara certainly seems totolitarian. Also the beuracracy that keeps Robert away from home so long is an example of government innefficancy that keeps families apart? Food for thought, and something to leave part 1 of this marathon with.

*Wolf Trap is available on VHS from Facets