Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1979 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Lukás Bech, Antonín Vanha, Eva Kacírková
One of the unsung masterpieces of Věra Chytilová’s still largely obscure post-sixties career, this stingingly satiric yet deeply human tragicomedy surveys the everyday absurdity of existence in a ramshackle, perpetually under-construction prefab housing complex: a monument to Soviet idealism that, in its forlorn shoddiness, becomes a symbol of its failings. Blending slapsticks gags with a jagged vérité visual style, Chytilová fashions a devastatingly funny portrait of life in a (literally) crumbling society.
Up Next in Directed by Věra Chytilová
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Calamity
Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1982 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Bolek Polívka, Dagmar Bláhová, Jana SynkováIn Věra Chytilová’s biting sex satire, a young college dropout (Bolek Polívka in his first of multiple collaborations with the director) navigates both a new job as a train driver and the amor...
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Wolf’s Hole
Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1987 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Miroslav Machácek, Tomás Palatý, Stepánka CervenkováVěra Chytilová’s subversive take on the 1980s teen-horror movie assembles a gaggle of bratty adolescents for a mysterious skiing retreat at a snowbound cabin where they find themselve...
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TGM the Liberator
Directed by Věra Chytilová • 1990 • Czechoslovakia
Věra Chytilová employs a mix of photographs, archival footage, and reenactment to tell the story of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the Czechoslovak politician, sociologist, and philosopher who served as the first elected president of Czechoslovakia fol...
