madhuban
(1/11/06 1:27 am) 

hi john,

i am still getting used to the logic of this message board. will look up the discussion on east european films you talk about. i recently acquired "Diamonds of the Night", but it is really an awfully bad print. this film has not been restored and released on DVD. i wonder why! have you seen Menzel's film on Hrabal's "Cutting It Short"? i haven't and am looking forward to ordering another bad print. if that's the only way one can watch these films, so be it! Passer's "Intimate Lighting" is another priority, as is Jires' "The Joke" and "Valerie and Her Week of Wonders". what i like best about the czech new wave is really the dark humour. it is quite unlike anything that has ever been done in cinema, especially if you consider that a lot of them (except Chytilova, Nemec) often stick to conventional linear narratives, yet use them to operate on an allegorical level. In most allegories, the characters become cardboard figures, but the czech new wave guys were able to pay as much attention to the ordinary everyday of their characters, as to the larger context of state socialism which was being made fun of through them.
M