This is a real rarity - a film that totally skewers the centrally-controlled system. The basic premise - to me - is how does a system that wants to control everyone and everything from gardens to belief in God deal with a phenomenon that contradicts their view of reality. Based on a real Czech folk legend (the White Lady being Perchta of Rozemberk) the film quickly takes off in some great directions. Hrusinsky, Bohdalova, Kopecsky and Brodsky are excellent, as is the rest of the cast. It took a while for me to get a hold of this one on DVD but it was well worth the wait. I rank this with other mid-60's Czech subversive films like Firemen's Ball and Who Wants to Kill Jessie?.
3 Reviews
"Here we are entering a new phase of history,and they want to go calling out ghost!"
morrison-dylan-fan2 July 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Getting back from seeing Toy Story 4, (2019-also reviewed)I felt like watching a Comedy before bed. Recently viewing a number of outstanding titles from Eastern Europe,I took a look at my download list and found one which sounded like it was worth Czech-ing out,which led to me meeting the white lady.
View on the film:
Inspired by the real Czech Folk tale the Perchta of Rozemberk, director Zdenek Podskalsky & cinematographer Frantisek Valert bring a kitsch Bewitched atmosphere to the glowing appearances of The White Lady,who casts spells, (which includes a funny gag involving freezing someone else in her painting) to improve the shortcomings in the economy and society of 1960's Czech, with stop/start camera pauses, and ghostly overlapped images tracking The White Lady walking through walls. Following The White Lady by keeping the film in a whimsical mood,Podskalsky picks up a satirical wand to burst the self-importance of the local Communist/Government in stylish, imposing upwards wide-shots on the locals in charge making grand, vapid speeches trying to come up with explanations for The White Lady.
Framing The White Lady as a unexplainable supernatural being, the screenplay by Karel Michal brilliantly takes the light fantasy and paints it with funny satirical flourishes brushed from the local Commie party attempting to place the "miracles" of White Lady into their designated, micro-managed boxes. While taking digs at the local bureaucracy,Michal refreshingly avoids a bitterness in the comedic tone, (the film later got banned from being shown during the Soviet Occupation) instead going for warm,folk-flavoured mishaps, as the local government ( which includes a hilarious Rudolf Hrusinsky as puffed-up predseda MNV) fumble to offer rational explanations for the improvements made by The White Lady.
View on the film:
Inspired by the real Czech Folk tale the Perchta of Rozemberk, director Zdenek Podskalsky & cinematographer Frantisek Valert bring a kitsch Bewitched atmosphere to the glowing appearances of The White Lady,who casts spells, (which includes a funny gag involving freezing someone else in her painting) to improve the shortcomings in the economy and society of 1960's Czech, with stop/start camera pauses, and ghostly overlapped images tracking The White Lady walking through walls. Following The White Lady by keeping the film in a whimsical mood,Podskalsky picks up a satirical wand to burst the self-importance of the local Communist/Government in stylish, imposing upwards wide-shots on the locals in charge making grand, vapid speeches trying to come up with explanations for The White Lady.
Framing The White Lady as a unexplainable supernatural being, the screenplay by Karel Michal brilliantly takes the light fantasy and paints it with funny satirical flourishes brushed from the local Commie party attempting to place the "miracles" of White Lady into their designated, micro-managed boxes. While taking digs at the local bureaucracy,Michal refreshingly avoids a bitterness in the comedic tone, (the film later got banned from being shown during the Soviet Occupation) instead going for warm,folk-flavoured mishaps, as the local government ( which includes a hilarious Rudolf Hrusinsky as puffed-up predseda MNV) fumble to offer rational explanations for the improvements made by The White Lady.
excellent dark comedy from the past
zelvuska25 July 2003
You have to be part of the passed political system for a while to understand all of the symbols in this movie. You have to smell the irony and absurdity in every move... I love this movie very much, it shows us, how we were stupid and blid for a long time :o)
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