Capricious Summer(Rozmarné léto)

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