Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave (Pearls of the Deep, Daisies, A Report on the Party and Guests, Return of the Prodigal Son, Capricious Summer, The Joke) (Criterion Collection)

A brief but brilliant era of experimental filmmaking
I've been eagerly awaiting a collection like this, spotlighting the burst of energy & imagination that was the Czech New Wave in the 1960s, for a long time. During the short period that it flourished, before the crackdown following the Prague Spring, it allowed young directors to respond to their world & its immense changes with very personal, almost Surrealist films. The grim reality of everyday life, as well as the struggle to resist that reality imposed from without, was dissected with humor, absurdity, and often avant-garde techniques. Yet it was always rooted in centuries of Czech culture.

The first film, "Pearls of the Deep", offers five short films from the five directors whose full-length films comprise the rest of the collection. These short pieces are in a fabulist, sometimes Kafkaesque vein; the Surrealist influence is also present, as it filtered in from the cultural explosion of the 1960s worldwide. This initial anthology is a good primer: if you like what you...

Some Interesting Film Experiments for Film Purists
Criterion's Eclipse series tend to be art house B films, those that have a narrower appeal or are further off the beaten path than regular Criterion Collection releases, which get the full treatment and are released in blu-ray. Some Eclipse releases are actually pretty accessible, (i.e., Late Ozu), but others are for film purists that have some particular interest in the director or the focus of the set. This set of early attempts by young Czech filmmakers in the mid-60's, not all of whom went on the have film careers, is clearly in the cinema purist camp. They are interesting, more than "good", but certainly convey a sense of a radical and experimental rethinking of cinema. Not all of the experiments were successful, but all of the films have some aspects of creativity and none are predictable. One of the most interesting, though difficult to watch, is the early feminist piece, Daises, about the adventures of a couple of decidedly un-feminine young women. Perhaps the most...



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