Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)
The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)
Czech New Wave
Genre: Drama
Director: Evald Schorm
Starring: Jan Kačer , Bohumil Šmída , Jan Libíček , Květa Fialová , Josef Bek
Language: Czech
Duration: 103 min.
Rating: 6.5
Summary:
Rumours escalate rapidly into fear and paranoia in a small Czech village following the visit of a wandering theatre troupe.
The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night is a film directed by Evald Schorm, co-written with Zdeněk Mahler. It was made during the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and immediately banned upon completion. It finally premiered in 1990 following the Velvet Revolution.

The film is an allegory of the political situation in 1968. Set over the course of 24 hours in a picturesque Czech village where a traveling theatre group arrives and inadvertently causes suspicion and panic among the local citizens. Rumours arise from a series of minor events, starting with the appearance of empty train cars, with the station master nowhere to be found, and the phone lines disconnected. In truth they are just simple misunderstandings, easily explainable, but fear and hysteria quickly take hold, and the situation snowballs into an uncontrollable and irreversible tragedy with shocking results.

Schorm presents the narrative in a very chaotic and disjointed way, following multiple threads at once, capturing events from all over the village and piecing them together in a manner that is often messy and confusing. You have to wonder if that was the intent, or if there was pressure to rush the film to completion given the climate of the time. There is a lot of religious symbolism as well, the plays that the actors put on are all biblical in nature and their dialogue is full of hidden references. Also interspersed throughout are several swooping aerial shots of the village, captured by an unseen camera, accompanied by high pitched alien like sounds, that seem to represent a hidden observer keeping tabs on events from the sky.

It's an interesting look at human nature, the danger of mob mentality, and how quickly it can lead to the erosion of morality. Though perhaps too incoherent and absurd to really make a connection with unless you experienced those times.
Bonjour Tristesse
The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night • Den sedmý, osmá noc (1969)

2 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

It screams paranoia!

d_4 said...

After the whole hidden references, I just realized this is the type of film I'll always finish and be left at blank. I'm pretty sure so, anyway.

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