Capricious Summer(Rozmarné léto)
Dir: Jiří Menzel
Czechoslovakia, 1968, Czech, 73mins, DCP
Cast: Rudolf Hrušínský, Vlastimil Brodský, František Řehák, Jiří Menzel
Released the same year as the invasion of his country by Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops, Menzel’s summer fantasy, beautifully shot in splashy Eastmancolor, is shaded by a melancholic undertone. At the heart of this comedy are three middleaged men, whose comfortable boredom is spiced up by the arrival of a travelling acrobat (played by Menzel himself), as they get drenched in their erotic misadventures with his beautiful assistant. Full of dry humour and flashes of interplay, this amusing idyll is a lovely reverie, yet evoking regret for lost youth and vain desires in a summer doomed to be unfortunate.
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival: Crystal Globe
