NinadeL

This is the direction Czech cinema should not have taken. But Jana was ready to set sail. "Marcel! Rock!" On the other hand, let's not pretend that this is something ultra groundbreaking and innovative - these films about troubled youths who lived their childhood during the war and, by the time they were teens, didn't care anymore have been made all over the world. Think of Marlon Brando in The Wild One, James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, or Horst Buchholz in Teenage Wolfpack. In the Czech case, it was Jana Brejchová’s spinning skirt that solved it.

Angel in a Devil's Body was made in 1982 and at the time it was a nostalgic and funny remembrance of the first republic when MPs abused their parliamentary immunity, the government changed, positions were divided and parties settled scores among themselves. Several years passed, and democracy returned with its ailments, the Czechs staged this production, and one critic wrote that it was the first political satire.

Back in A Solo for an Old Lady, Matějka had already proven that he’d mastered widescreen color cinema to perfection. The sequel Angel Seduces Devil is perhaps only brought down by the overly protracted production, which couldn't cope with the fact that it was supposed to be the middle part of a trilogy (hence the alarming sirens at the very end). Moreover, the story takes place not in 1933, as is sometimes mistakenly stated, but at the turn of 1930/1931, just a year after the first film, which complicates the situation for the inattentive viewer.

It's not as nicely fleshed out as other agitprops, so it may seem like a more insidious film. It’s too bad that after two reruns the charm of the "evil" film is definitely gone and all that is left is just plain boredom and the awkwardness of everyone involved. The Dohnal and Pešek generation are ironing out their apolitical older films, while the young folks, led by the boxer Peterka, are just aimlessly smiling. Regarding the singer Červená, they're just trying to have a modern-day vamp. They hum the Internationale, sew their shirts (to disgrace the flag), and are not fabulous at all. So much for my first two encounters with Kidnapped. The third time around, I went into it in a completely different mood and found several new insights. These included banalities such as the fact that Hrušínský's English is lousy, that Dohnal, instead of exhibiting his mature acting strengthened by his long years at the National Theater, cannot even speak properly under the layer of a disgusting mask, and that despite this inspiring environment, Pešek considered his role here to be quite crucial in his dramatic career. How is this possible? The script is a true balance between audacity, arrogance, stupidity (senility, dementia...), and the ineptitude we so often witnessed in the early years of nationalized film. And yet Kidnapped is original in its own way, in its conception of Americans as less than caricature templates, as walking imbeciles who communicate in sparkling dialogue along the lines of "...and Engineer Prokop is my Trojan horse." - "I don't know that type of horse, we never had one like that here in the US. Absolutely not." They counter with nonsensically black and white crude parallels between the ever-receding fear of concentration camp practices and the current inclusion of war criminals in the machinery of American "democratic" progress. We also get the ubiquitous "Hello!," the affectionate "Ami Go Home" and the thesis of the nationalization of the United Nations, the Sudeten German question is abused, the internship in Moscow is looked forward to and the Munich follies are danced into the mix. American soldiers are serving because they would otherwise be unemployed and have no idea why they should shoot their fellow Czechs - unless they are on the run. Is that still not enough for you? Okay, great. Now let's enjoy the symbolism of the fly imprisoned and released, let's have some fun with the hidden meaning of the question mark, which is after all so cleverly used as a sickle, and let's naturally applaud Karen for his "good" jailer. Nedbal for his rape of every piece of furniture he touched, or lay on, during an interrogation or any other narcissistic etude. Samohana is bad, but is Kopecký's hesitant motif equally bad? Didn't Pešek have it too easy when he was avenging his dead family, something that Milda, who only yearned for Western culture, couldn't compete with? Will I ever again encounter a worse-functioning red group that feeds exclusively on paper? Will Chef Hlinomaz understand who the Bolsheviks are? How come Eda Kohout was overshadowed by Hanus as always, even though he had a higher batch? Will I believe in the Barrandov career of Lída Vostrčilová or will I be lucky enough to survive Inocenc Březina’s performance? Is he oral fixation and Vykypěl's intonation enough for my level of black humor? Can I ever forget the incredibly insane performance of the smug Dubský or the WTF journalists Effa and Myzet? And was the meeting between Klose and Kadár truly happy one? After all, they are responsible not only for the direction but also for the theme and the script.

Nun, ich hoffe, das ist es :) eine meiner härtesten Erfahrungen. Ich bin mir nur nicht sicher, in wie vielen Fortsetzungen das angesichts des IMDb-Materials veröffentlicht werden könnte.

The Czech Republic needed this sort of film. Thanks to the sympathetic young actresses, the film broke through in places where less attractive faces would have caused a problem. It makes me happy that after only two years, each of them has already shown how independent they are.

Nachdem ich mich an beiden Versionen von Queer as Folk sattgesehen hatte, wollte ich etwas anderes. Und siehe da, beide Serien waren revolutionär, aber sie haben nicht viel Aufsehen erregt. Wenn man sich nämlich für das nächste queere TV-Drama interessiert, findet man zuerst so etwas wie das hier... (Ja, ich kenne The L Word sehr gut ;)) Dante's Cove ist nicht ausgesprochen schlecht, aber für mich ist es eine Mischung aus zu vielen Genres auf einmal. Der Pilotfilm beginnt als großartige Kostüm-Magie-Schwulen-Show, aber schon bald verlagert sich alles in die Gegenwart, und obwohl es immer noch viele Verbindungen zur Vergangenheit mit einer guten Dosis Mystery gibt (Tracy Scoggins und William Gregory Lee sind auf beiden Ebenen solide teuflisch)... wird es zu einer Seifenoper, was wirklich schade ist. Aber immer noch besser als gar nichts ;) Doch so viel Blowing zu Beginn hätte man anderswo nicht bekommen.

Wann begreift endlich jeder, für welche Altersgruppe die Serie gedacht ist? Kinder im Vorschulalter haben so überall auf der Welt die Möglichkeit, die Grundlagen einer zweiten Sprache ebenso schnell zu erlernen wie ihre Muttersprache. Nicht mehr und auch nicht weniger. Schlüpfen Sie also entweder in die Rolle eines Erziehers, der zum Beispiel die "Teletubbies" zur Aussprache einzelner Silben und Farben verwendet, oder denken Sie darüber nach, wie ideal es wäre, wenn ein Männlein zum Beispiel Rara hieße und sie sich gegenseitig Hörnchen servieren würden. Die Verortung sollte man nicht unterschätzen.

Für alle Fälle oder 9 Jahre im Luisenkrankenhaus, mehrere Krankenschwestern, die zufällig alle Stephanie heißen... Außerdem Oberschwester Klara, Krankenschwester Elke, die Ärzte Stein und Meier-Liszt. Und eine ganze Reihe von Fällen, von Rosamund Pilcher bis Max Reinhardt.

If I ignore the violent elements of the inorganically-inserted retro in the form of the pair of non-actors Menzel and Kresadlová (indeed, next to Věra, Jiří also acts almost perfectly) and focus on the contemporary realistic relationship drama based on the great Slovak guests Luknár and Fialová, then I am delighted. I didn't expect that the perfectly coordinated Hřebejk team and the same faces could make something like this. The etudes of Macháček and Trojan naturally have their limits but in the context of the Roman acquaintances it all fits together beautifully and matures as the years go by. Ana and Zuzana's meeting over menthol was magnificent.