Also this issue: Fest Shorts Reviews from the closing week of the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival New Shorts Continuing Shorts Repertory Film Showtimes

July 17-23, 2003

screen picks

Abnormalization: Scenes from the Czech New Wave

by Sam Adams

Abnormalization: Scenes from the Czech New Wave (Thu.-Sat., July 17-19, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-895-6542, www.ihousephilly.org) International House's Czech New Wave series actually began Wednesday night with Milos Forman's The Firemen's Ball, but Forman's film is the odd duck in the series, as the only one completed before the period of Soviet-enforced "normalization," which followed the relative permissiveness of 1968's "Prague Spring." Though Jan Nemec's short documentary, Oratorio for Prague (1968), features reductive flower-power narration and a jarringly peppy piano score, it does contain the only footage of Soviet tanks rolling into Prague, not to mention images of bloodstained cobblestones and the bodies of gunned-down students.

Oratorio, which screened with The Firemen's Ball in its original New York run, here precedes Karel Kachyna's 1970 The Ear (Thu., 8 p.m.), a harrowing tale that interweaves marital discord and surveillance paranoia. With its portrait of a government functionary who spends a sleepless night wondering if he'll be arrested before daybreak, it's no wonder that The Ear had to wait until 1989 for its Czech premiere; the wonder is that it was made at all. The latter, at least, can be explained by the fact that Kachyna's longtime collaborator, scenarist Jan Procházka, was a government official of some standing -- which accounts, no doubt, for The Ear's insider perspective, playing as it does with the couple's knowledge of which rooms in their comfortable house are likely bugged and which aren't. As they discuss the arrest of his superior, the couple moves from room to room, opening and closing doors depending on which conversations they want heard and which they don't. (After a long night of drinking and recriminations about their infrequent sex life, he pulls a bear rug from a kitchen cabinet and lays it on the floor, their bedroom assumed to be bugged.) With its escalating marital tensions, The Ear is as much Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as 1984, with a helping of Seconds for the flashbacks to the official party they've just come from, replaying idle chat that seems menacing in retrospect. (Based only on this film, Kachyna might also pass as Czechoslovakia's answer to Polanski.) With its pitch-perfect ending, The Ear is a surprisingly commercial thriller that tangles with dark undercurrents, a movie ripe for rediscovery.

Not so Jaromil Jires' 1970 Valerie and her Week of Wonders (Fri., 8 p.m.), a dated surrealist allegory about a young girl's coming of age. The nubile Valerie, who shucks her peasant blouse with comical frequency, is bedeviled by a demon in white face makeup and vampire teeth whom she refers to as "The Weasel," and who is at one point replaced with an actual weasel, though the same never happens to her brother, whose name appears to be "Eagle." Though Jires concocts some memorable images -- a coffin full of chickens, a pool of water that bursts into flame when it's struck -- he strikes out just as often; just try stifling a guffaw when that weasel turns up wearing Valerie's magic earrings. When Val moans, "If only this night of magic would come to an end!" you're likely to agree. It's shown, however, with Jan Svankmajer's brilliant short, The Flat (1968), which might be worth your six bucks all on its own.

The series concludes with a visit from animator Paul Fierlinger, who will host a free afternoon of Czech short subjects Saturday at 1 p.m. Fierlinger lives in Wynnewood, but as recounted in his memorable animated autobiography, Drawn from Memory, he grew up in Czechoslovakia, where his Uncle Zdenek was the country's first communist prime minister. Fierlinger will screen excerpts from his recent Still Life with Animated Dogs as well as Jiri Trinka's landmark The Hand, Josef Kabrt's Sisyphus and Ivan Passer's delightful A Dull Afternoon, which chronicles an aimless après-midi in a humble Czech town.

Valley Girl (Sat., July 19, 7 p.m., $20, Broadway Theatre, Pitman, N.J., 856-589-7519, www.exhumedfilms.com) A post-film performance by Asia (or at least two members of the '80s ooze merchants) is the reason for the high price tag, but it's happily not this column's place to comment. Focus instead on the screening of Martha Coolidge's 1983 comedy that precedes it. Think of the young Nicolas Cage, who'd just changed his last name from Coppola. Think of that soundtrack -- The Plimsouls! Josie Cotton! Better yet, remember an era when teen movies weren't grotesquely overpackaged softcore. Just imagine.

The Cremaster Cycle (starts Wed., July 23, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700, www.princemusictheater.org) By next week, we'll have subjected ourselves to Matthew Barney's five-part, six-and-a-half-hour film/art thing in its entirety, as you'll have a chance to do starting at 1 p.m. on Sunday the 27th. But if you're looking to take things a bit slower (or, God forbid, only see part of it), get started Wednesday night with Cremasters 1 and 2, beginning at 7:30. Stay tuned for more.