nekrqy

The common cliché goes that there are two kinds of films: entertainment for the masses on one hand and arthouse cinema on the other. Of course, "consumers" of the former are supposed to find the latter pretentious and boring while "connoisseurs" of the later are expected to sneer upon the former. Oldrich Lipsky, probably not too respectfully, disagrees. Rarely has a filmmaker so successfully blended pure aesthetic, often quite surreal and bordering on oenirism, with unrivaled primal hilarity. This move is a prime example; taking one of the lesser known Jules Verne stories, and expanding on the book's plot all the while remaining quite faithful to it, he turned it into a retro-futurist steampunk horror comedy that Verne probably wouldn't recognise as his novel - which doesn't mean he wouldn't like it.

One particularity of this movie that should be noted here is that its creative use of language. The film is full of signs and written notices in the fictional language of the (also fictional) Kingdom of Carpathia. Clearly designed to imitate typical Romanian idioms but still be understandable by Czech viewers (and immediately bring Dracula stories and similar folklore to their minds), it is a wonderfully baroque creation that is to language what the film's props are to technology. The peasants, meanwhile, speak in another made up (but understandable) dialect that a Czech speaker will invariably find very funny. Indeed, may lines from those dialogues became part of the Czech popular culture. The movie draws a large part of its humour and atmosphere from this and, unfortunately, viewers who don't understand Czech and rely on subtitles are deprived of an important part of the viewer's experience.

@rooprect: if you loved this film, don't miss "Adele didn't have dinner yet" (Adela jeste nevecerela): same director, same producer, same actors in the two leading roles, same retro-futurism, same "horror" that will make you shake... with uncontrollable laughter.