LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Karel Kachyna: Works
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In this atmosphere Kachyna's and Jasny's The Clouds Will Roll Away looked like a fresh gust of cinéma vérité or maybe Italian Neorealism. The freshness of view was only later deformed, according to a young film critic at the time, under party pressure which forced the filmmakers to produce works filled with contrived pathos. Pathos had always been a foreign element in Czech film: Czechs had no use for bunting, because the flags they had to honour were often not their own but were usually those of their larger neighbours, whether they liked it or not. So Czech art had to find various ways to communicate very intimately with the audience: through mystification, parody, and demythologisation of grand concepts.
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In 1992, Kachyna directed "The Cow", a simple rural drama about the hard life of poor village people at the turn of the 20th century. For Kachyna, the film had special significance because Alena Mihulova, the leading actress, became his third wife. His last film was "Hanele" (1999), set in Sub-Carpathian Ukraine, where a girl from a traditional Jewish family leaves for work in the big city and falls for a man who has turned away from his traditional faith.
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Kachyna and Prochazka made two films which are among the best of this period. Funny Old Man (Smesny pan, 1969) was completed right after the invasion and was only distributed for a short period. A 60-year-old cyberneticist, who used to be imprisoned in a Stalinist concentration camp, undergoes heart surgery. He can live again but has no hope of getting his work and family back; a bitter film which ends with a hopeful message.
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Kachyna rose to fame with the liberal interlude in Czech film-making that came with the Prague Spring. It is good not just to see him still making films, but it is even more encouraging to see that he is still in top form. Krava pleasantly contrasts with the disappointing works produced by some of the other Czech directors who have seen their careers revived in the 1990s.
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In the 1990s, the New Wave directors were free to make films again, but none managed to make a work that rivalled their 1960s work, and only Karel Kachyna and Nemec came even remotely close. However, a new, younger group of directors drew inspiration from these classic films and were able, once again, to win international acclaim for Czech film.
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[S]howing at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival this week will be Krava (The Cow, 1993) as a tribute to veteran Czech director Karel Kachyna. Kinoeye examines the film in the context of another work set deep in the Czech forests, Ivan Vojnar's Cesta pustym lesem (The Way through the Bleak Woods, 1997).
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