Capricious Summer [Rozmarné léto] **** (1968, Rudolf Hrusínský, Vlastimil Brodský, Frantisek Rehák, Jana Drchalová, Jirí Menzel) – Classic Movie Review 9261

Co-writer/ director/ star Jiri Menzel’s 1968 Czech film Capricious Summer [Rozmarné léto] delivers a diverting, well-characterised, sadness-tinged comedy mistily and delicately set in the past.

Menzel plays the tightrope balancer Arnostek and Jana Drchalová [Jana Preissová] plays his gorgeous helper daughter Anna. They arrive with their touring circus in a quiet Czech village by the river. There, during rainy summer days, Drchalová’s attractions arouse steam heat in three ageing, comfortably off men (Rudolf Hrusínský as  bath-keeper Antonín Dura, Vlastimil Brodský as artillery officer Major Hugo, Frantisek Rehák as priest Canon Roch), with wry results.

The mild air of kindliness, emphasised by the beautiful but artificial-looking Eastmancolor colour, is offset by the many funny events, all inventively imagined and developed.

Writer-director Menzel, who learned to balance on the tightrope for the picture for his role as the tightrope walker, is clearly in his element in this fuzzily-focused and temperate but most satisfying experience, based on the novel by Vladislav Vancura. It is the first colour feature from the Czech New Wave master.

Also in the cast are Míla Myslíková, Bohus Záhorský and Vlasta Jelínková.

Capricious Summer [Rozmarné léto] is directed  by Jiri Menzel, runs 78 minutes, is made by Ceskoslovensky Film and Filmové studio Barrandov, is released by Sigma III Corp (1968) (US) and Contemporary Films (1969) (UK), is written by Jiri Menzel and Václav Nývlt, with Vladimír Kalina and Jan Libora (dramatisation), based on the novel by Vladislav Vancura, is shot in Eastmancolor by Jaromir Sofr, is produced by Zdenek Oves (executive producer) and Jan Libora, is scored by Jiri Sust and is designed by Oldrich Bosák.

Its planned appearance in competition at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival did not happen when the festival was cancelled because of the events of May 1968 in France.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9261

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