Themes: Fish Out of Water, Brief Encounters, Generation Gap
Main Cast: Hana Brejchova, Vladimir Pucholt, Vladimir Mensik, Antonin Blazejovsky, Jiri Hruby
Release Year: 1965
Country: CS
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
Out in the Czech countryside, a shoe factory owner petitions the People's Army to station a division of soldiers in his town, where the women outnumber the men sixteen to one. The arrival of the troops is greeted with great excitement, but the girls in the town are disappointed to see that the men are older reservists, and not the strapping young men they'd envisioned. Still, when a band plays at the local pub, the girls show up to be ogled by the older men, many of whom are married. A trio of reservists sends a bottle of wine to Andula (Hana Brejchova), Marie (Marie Salacova), and Jana (Jana Novakova), and the girls argue over whether or not to acknowledge the gesture. But Andula catches the eye of the comparatively dashing young pianist, Milda (Vladimir Pucholt). Milda convinces Andula to go to his room, where he seduces the mildly reluctant girl. The next morning, the traveling musician assures her repeatedly, "I do not have a girlfriend in Prague." Milda leaves town, as expected, but Andula has fallen in love with him, and decides to journey to Prague to track him down. A low-key black-and-white ensemble comedy, Loves of a Blonde was cast predominantly with non-professional actors. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, drew a lot of attention to the "Czech New Wave," and jumpstarted the international filmmaking career of director Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde is a modest and delightfully naturalistic comedy. The film opens with a plaintively sung Beatle-esque love song (in Czech, naturally, except for the "yeah, yeah, yeah"s) that perfectly captures the film's playful spirit, and the hint of melancholy underneath. In the first extended setpiece of the film, three older, married, reservists contemplate putting the moves on a table of young women, and bicker endlessly about how to proceed. Meanwhile, the women are also in disagreement as to whether acknowledge the attentions of the men. Forman cast mostly non-actors in the film, and he demonstrates a fine eye for faces, which make the shorthand of his characterizations that much more effective. Forman adeptly mixes the verbal humor in the scene with low-key physical comedy, as in the close-ups of Andula's (Hana Brejchova) frowning face as she dances with a clumsy bespectacled soldier. There's a sweetly amusing post-coital scene between Andula and Milda (Vladimir Pucholt). But the film gets even better when the scene shifts to Prague, where Andula encounters Milda's confused, worried mother (Milada Jezkova) and father (Josef Sebanek). Jezkova and Sebanek deliver superb comic performances as the grumpy couple, and when Pucholt enters the scene later, the film reaches its comedic heights. Forman's sublime portrait of family dysfunction makes the quiet unassuming Loves of a Blonde a memorable work of cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Andula is a working-class woman living in a fading Czech factory town. After a party she sleeps with Milda, a member of the performing band who is visiting from Prague. A famous line is uttered as they are lying in bed afterwards. Andula asks what Milda meant when he said she was "angular." He goes on to explain that a woman is shaped like a guitar. "And you, you look like a guitar too," he tells her, "but one painted by Picasso." They part ways, and when she doesn't hear from him again, she packs up and arrives on his doorstep in the big city. Milda lives with his parents, who make quite a show when this unexpected visitor surprises them and throws their world into darkly comical chaos.
