Jiří Menzel a daring, defiant beacon of European cinema
almost 5 years in The guardian
The Czech director’s films reflected a difficult, grisly era but were infused with an irresistible wit and romance, most memorably in Closely Observed Trains
Related: Jiri Menzel, Oscar-winning Czech film director, dies at 82
Jiří Menzel was the powerhouse film-maker of the Czech new wave, a director, screenwriter and actor who along with Věra Chytilová, Ján Kadár and Miloš Forman found a way of speaking to the Czech soul – the European soul, too – and mobilised cinema in the cause of humanity and freedom. Menzel’s movies, in their wit and subversive romance, were born of the grisly era that ran from Munich ’38 to the Prague Spring; the Czechs knew tyranny from both sides: the violence and war delirium of the Nazis and then the dead hand of Soviet rule with its chilling paranoia and humourless, clodhopping bureaucracy. Continue reading...
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