Karel Kachyňa

Long Live the Republic!

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Close up of Oldrich and his dog

Memory, fantasy and the Second World War make surprisingly comfy bedfellows in Long Live the Republic! (Ať žije republika), Karel Kachyňa’s lyrical and lovely coming-of-ager from 1965. A Czech movie set in Moravia as the German army pulls out and the Soviet army readies itself to take over, it’s far less critical of the communist regime than you might expect from a mid-1960s film. Especially from a film-maker who’d later make The Ear, a film so scathingly anti that it was instantly banned and not seen until communism collapsed. But poke around a bit and there’s a critique of sorts going on, delivered with the maximum of plausible deniability. The non-plot follows a … Read more

The Ear

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Ludvik and Anna talk in the darkened kitchen

When director Karel Kachyňa was making The Ear (aka Ucho), released in 1970 but not seen until 1990, he must have known it wasn’t going to be seen. Surely? How could he not? We’re in Communist Czechoslovakia, where a married couple are coming home from a Party party. Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová) is drunk and bursting for a piss, Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohatý) is tired and anxious. Has it been a good evening? Has he said the right thing to the right people? Was the party they were at another leg up in his reasonably glittering career or something else? Ludvik isn’t sure. And now, it seems, they can’t find the keys to the front … Read more