Calamity
Věra Chytilová
Czechoslovakia,
1982
Several years after returning to the Czechoslovak film industry from political excommunication, Věra Chytilová crafted one of her finest satires with 1982’s Calamity, a seemingly conventional sex comedy that takes covert aim at the Communist government’s institutional rot. When directionless slacker Honza (Bolek Polívka, soon to become a Chytilová regular) drops out of college, he decides to take on a career as a train conductor, to the perplexity of his father and friends. Yet almost nothing goes right for Honza, who must not only navigate the bureaucratic absurdities of the state-controlled railway system but also the romantic advances of three different women (Dagmar Bláhová, Jana Synková, and Jaroslava Kretschmerová), leading up to an uproarious finale set in a snowbound train. Employing endlessly inventive narrative left turns, Chytilová incisively criticizes the regressive intransigence of Czechoslovakia’s “normalization” era with her patented brand of gleeful, anarchic mirth.
Details
- 101 min
- Color
- 1.37:1
Formats
- DCP
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