Tag Archives: Czech

CAPSULE: THE CASSANDRA CAT (1963)

Az prijde kocour, AKA When the Cat Comes

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Vojtech Jasný

FEATURING: Jan Werich, Emília Vásáryová, Vlastimil Brodský

PLOT: A magical cat reveals people’s true natures leading to whimsy and chaos.

Still from The Cassandra Cat (1963)

COMMENTS: On the surface, the movies of the (1963-1968) seem vastly different from typical cinema, but they aren’t. Not really. See, starting in 1945, when the film industry in Czechoslovakia was nationalized, the country’s cinema became stultified. Even small children could predict the outcome of every story. But in the early sixties there was a de-Stalinization within the Czech Artistic Council, and that led to an explosion of creativity: the Czech New Wave.

Films as strikingly different from one another as Daisies (1966) and A Report on the Party and Guests (1966) share not only this sociopolitical background but also a similar sense of absurdity and surrealism.

Why this Film Studies 101 intro? Because The Cassandra Cat (1963) (aka When the Cat ComesThe Cat Who Wore Sunglasses, One Day a Cat, and That Cat) makes a lot more sense in context.

A magician and his troupe come to a small town. They bring with them a cat wearing sunglasses. During the magic show, we learn the direct and rather impassive glare of the cat reveals a person’s true colors: literally. People turn entirely yellow if they are guilty of infidelity, purple if they are “social climbers” (we might say “brown nosers”), gray if thieves, and of course red if when they’re in love. Much chaos and hilarity ensues.

The Cassandra Cat is witty and whimsical, never passing up an opportunity to take a jab at authority, which is shown as anti-art and, through hunting and taxidermy, as anti-life itself. Our hero, a third grade teacher, is pro-art, anti-death, and all red when the cat looks at him, as he is smitten with the magician’s assistant.

The cat gets lost and falls into the wrong hands. The children protest by going into hiding. The parents lose their cool each in their own way, and in one delightful scene stand on tree stumps in the forest calling out their children’s names under the direction of a conductor. In the end the teacher does not get to keep true love (which thwarts the predictable Artistic Council code), but he does get a class of happy and creative students.

The Cassandra Cat uses experimental special effects throughout. Some of these, such as the process used to color those who have been seen by the cat, made restoration of the film quite tricky.

The Cassandra Cat‘s story is thin. Many scenes seem to have no purpose except to have fun, which in itself could have been rebellion against previous (and future) restrictions. The Czech New Wave essentially ended when Soviet tanks rolled in and crushed the Prague Spring in 1968.

See, doesn’t a cat wearing sunglasses lest he expose people’s true natures make more sense when you have that Cold War background?

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Part family fable and part surreal acid trip… Usually surreal, hallucinogenic films are also dark and moody, but Cat is unusual in this regard. It is a bittersweet film that never loses its sense of innocence, despite the wild scenes from the town square.”–Joe Bendel, J.B. Spins

10*: THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1962)

Baron Prásil

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Miloš Kopecký, Jana Brejchová, Rudolf Jelínek

PLOT: An astronaut, Tonik, discovers that he is not the first man on the Moon, having been beaten there by literary figures Cyrano de Bergerac, Jules Verne’s protagonists of “From the Earth to the Moon,” and Baron Munchausen. Mistaking the astronaut as a native moonman, Munchausen volunteers to take him back to Earth to show him the ways of earthlings. The pair there rescue a princess from a sultan and are swallowed by a fish, among other fantastic adventures.

BACKGROUND:

  • The character of Baron Munchausen comes from  Rudolf Erich Raspe’s 1785 novel “Baron Munchausen’s narrative of his marvellous travels and campaigns in Russia.” Raspe based Muchausen on a real-life German officer who was notorious for embellishing tales of his own military exploits. Czechs traditionally called the same character “Baron Prásil.”
  • Munchausen’s stories have been adapted to film many times, beginning with a short in 1911.
  • Karel Zeman’s previous film, the black and white Invention for Destruction [Vynález zkázy], won the Grand Prix at the International Film Festival at Expo 58, and was considered the most successful Czech film of all time. Baron Prásil was even more ambitious, adding a luscious color palette and expanding on the techniques Zeman had pioneered in his previous work.
  • Home Cinema Choice named The Fabulous Baron Munchausen‘s 2017 remaster the best restoration of the year.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Red smoke billowing in a yellow sky as the Baron and companions escape on horseback.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Cyrano and pals on the Moon; Pegasus-drawn spaceship

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Baron Prasil is a stunning visual feast combining live-action and animation, the effect far surpassing the modest means (by then-current standards) with which it was made.


Trailer for the restored version of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen

COMMENTS: “If he’s endowed with such imagination, let’s see some Continue reading 10*: THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1962)

THREE FANTASTIC JOURNEYS BY KAREL ZEMAN

Karel Zeman was a Czech animator, creator of some of the most lavishly stylized Jules Verne-inspired fantasy films ever made. His mature movies combined live actors with cutout animation and eye-popping three dimensional sets that defy imagination, with geometries that would make Escher scratch his head. Although the three major films chronicled here all made it onto an international stage and were dubbed into English, this pioneer remains known today mainly to a small group of cult movie fans and animation nerds. The Criterion Collection sought to rectify that oversight in 2020 with a very cool box set of three of Zeman’s best and wildest fantasies, newly restored and with a host of extras—many courtesy of the Karel Zeman Museum in Prague (yes, he’s that big of a deal in the Czech Republic).

In Zeman’s playful spirit, the Blu-ray set comes in a fold-out package with pop-up art (a dinosaur, a balloon, and Baron Munchausen riding a cannonball). The DVD set costs a few bucks less and is more modestly packaged. Otherwise, the extra features are the same between the formats. Each includes a foldout Michael Atkinson essay that’s presented like a vintage newspaper or playbill. Although the Blu-ray packaging is both chic and retro, the three fantastic journeys are the star features.

Disc 1: 1955’s Journey to the Beginning of Time is the perfect introduction to Karel Zeman. It tells the story of four boys who take off downriver, traveling backwards through time as they row along, first encountering woolly mammoths, then dinosaurs. This is the kind of movie a Disney might have produced in America, full of wholesome adventure and a healthy dose of scientific facts to nourish growing minds. At times, it plays more like a trip to the natural history museum than a rousing adventure yarn; but the kid actors are surprisingly good, and the stop-motion animation is often the equal of (and sometimes better than) Zeman’s American counterpart, Ray Harryhausen. It’s unmistakably a kid’s movie, and more simplistic in craft than the director’s future features, but you can already tell a sure hand is on the rudder.

Still from Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955)Like all the discs, the first includes a Czech trailer and a selection of short “museum documentaries” from the Karel Zeman Museum. The footage from these museum documentaries, which provide context for each film and reveal some of Zeman’s techniques, run about two to six minutes each, and will later be incorporated into disc 3’s full-length documentary. It’s handy to have the bits specific to the film you’re watching collected in one place, however. This section of the disc also presents a short before-and-after restoration Continue reading THREE FANTASTIC JOURNEYS BY KAREL ZEMAN