Presented by Facets Cinematheque and the Czech Center New York, this retrospective series on writer-director Pavel Juracek runs Friday through Thursday, April 9 through 15, at Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton. Tickets are $9, $5 for Facets members; for more information call 773-281-9075. Programs marked with an * are highly recommended.
SATURDAY, APRIL 10
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Martin Sulik sifts through Juracek’s mordant and voluminous diaries to create this impressionistic 2003 portrait of an artist continually on the verge of cracking up. Reports of pressure from state apparatchiks are sandwiched between deadpan observations like “They finally picked a Miss Czechoslovakia” and “It says on the bathroom wall that Veronika’s got a lover” (a humiliating reference to his promiscuous wife). Intense highs of feverish creativity play out against a dark social backdrop as the Prague Spring of 1968 is crushed by Soviet tanks, and footage of Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale being worshipped at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival contrasts absurdly with harrowing accounts of political censorship. Especially piquant is the casting of Marek Juracek to reenact scenes from his father’s remarkable but sadly truncated life. In Czech with subtitles. 58 min. (Andrea Gronvall) Completing the program is Joseph Kilian (1963, 38 min.), codirected by Juracek and Jan Schmidt. (7:00, 9:00)
Zdenek Sirovy’s Keeper of Dynamite (1960, 23 min.), which Juracek adapted from a story by Jan Drda, is a spare yet engrossing World War II drama about an unassuming supply clerk in occupied Czechoslovakia who conspires with his wife to thwart the Nazis’ depredations and then falls in with saboteurs who are blowing up transport trains. Much subtler is the sweetly melancholic Every Young Man (1965, 83 min.), Juracek’s first solo directing effort. The first of its two segments follows a pair of soldiers on leave in an orderly but soulless city where they encounter an enigmatic blond in various guises; the second deals with the absurdity of army life, as their company ineptly practices maneuvers amid unfazed peasants. Both films are in Czech with subtitles. (Andrea Gronvall) (3:00, 5:00)
Voyage to the End of the Universe
