Friday, July 31, 2020

Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, 1965)


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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