Talking to my dad about my plans to watch titles from Czech cinema during the Cold War for a month,I was happily caught by surprise when he revealed that he had recently picked up a Czech New Wave (CNW) movie. With it only having a 63 min running time,I decided it was time to uncover the diamonds of the night.
The plot:
Escaping from a train on the way to a Nazi concentration camp,two boys run into the woods.Trying to hide in the moonlight,the boys experience flashbacks from the horrors that they have seen the Nazis commit.Failing to stay hidden,the two boys are caught by a local shooting gang.
View on the film:
Going over the rugged terrain,Second Run gives the title a terrific transfer which retains the grain on the picture whilst offering a clarity to the central sound effects.
Following the boys in the woods with a frantic tracking shot,co- writer/(along with Arnost Lustig) director Jan Nemec delivers his debut with a full immense atmosphere,as Nemec and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera keep an unreserved distance with jagged CNW panning shots to the boys which grip the war torn landscape in a documentary rawness. Tearing the exposition and dialogue in their adaptation of Lustig's autobiography to the bone, the writers grind the grain from the stark,almost silent images from the horrors of war with a chilling nightmare-logic unravelling of the fractured minds of the two boys,who shine like diamonds in the night.
The plot:
Escaping from a train on the way to a Nazi concentration camp,two boys run into the woods.Trying to hide in the moonlight,the boys experience flashbacks from the horrors that they have seen the Nazis commit.Failing to stay hidden,the two boys are caught by a local shooting gang.
View on the film:
Going over the rugged terrain,Second Run gives the title a terrific transfer which retains the grain on the picture whilst offering a clarity to the central sound effects.
Following the boys in the woods with a frantic tracking shot,co- writer/(along with Arnost Lustig) director Jan Nemec delivers his debut with a full immense atmosphere,as Nemec and cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera keep an unreserved distance with jagged CNW panning shots to the boys which grip the war torn landscape in a documentary rawness. Tearing the exposition and dialogue in their adaptation of Lustig's autobiography to the bone, the writers grind the grain from the stark,almost silent images from the horrors of war with a chilling nightmare-logic unravelling of the fractured minds of the two boys,who shine like diamonds in the night.