It’s impossible to watch Milos Forman’s
Loves of a Blonde
(or any of the Czech films of its era) now without a major application of
hindsight, as a key film in the run-up to the 1968 Prague Spring and to the subsequent August invasion and crack-down (during which Forman would leave the
country). The film shimmers with the desire for freedom – not so much
politically (although that can be inferred) but certainly personally and
artistically. This desire is inherent in the structure, starting with a young
woman who’s tangential to what follows belting out a boisterous love song
direct to the camera, then pivoting to the protagonist Andula snuggling in bed
with a girlfriend, talking about the man she loves, just as she’ll be doing at the
end, except by then she'll be talking about a different person, and we’ll be better aware of how much wistful
fantasy colours her account. She works in a small-town factory and lives in the
hostel attached to it: there’s a military base nearby and the women are at
least tacitly encouraged to be available for the relief of the soldiers posted
there; it’s an eternal irony that the easiest way to dodge those unwanted advances is to
submit to those of someone else, in her case those of a visiting piano player. The bedroom scenes that follow
are daringly lovely, but when she follows him to Prague, it’s to end up
spending time with his bickering parents, in an extended deadpan comedy set-up
that at the same time is meaningfully poignant. But the movie’s quiet magic
lies simply in the sense of delight and exercised liberty that underlies its choices:
to observe one thing at such length while skipping over another; to rest on thisface or on that one, just because; to start and end as it chooses, with little implied capacity
to foretell, much less shape, the future.
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