All My Good Countrymen

This may not be a good place to start to enjoy Czech film - there are more accessible New Wave films - but it is a very powerful film which should not be missed by anybody who has more than a passing familiarity with the country and its history. With actors such as Radoslav Brzobohatý, Vladimír Menšík, a young Jíří Kodet, and the ever-popular singer and actor Waldemar Matuška, the film has a first-rate cast. In Jaroslav Kučera, it had a great cinematographer. Jasný was by now an accomplished screenwriter and, the countryside of the Pardubice region was as beautiful a backdrop as the machinations of the early communist period and, in particularly, the collectivisation of agriculture, were a fascinating subject. Still, the excellence of the film was not a given. The structure, given in large part by alternating dramatic changes of the environment as the seasons change and those first years after the communist takeover roll on, is effective and well-paced and permits a continuity of tone and subject with certain more episodic elements. The plot, on the page, might come across as busy, but on the screen, there is plenty of breathing space, and room for exquisite shots of the countryside, of work, even of play. So too does the heroic refusal to compromise of one of the characters, František, which becomes of increasing importance as the film moves into the mid 1950s, do nothing to detract from the well-balanced portrayal of the various characters of the village, described and referred to by their silly nicknames from the opening scenes in the months after the war. The history and fates of these characters are handled deftly, often with a brevity and telling detail of a John Cheever story. Neither is the film as unremittingly brutal as others handling similar material, such as the excellent, and thematically similar Smuteční slavnost of the following year. Like that film, I hope to return to Všichni dobří rodáci many times yet, and am sure it will repay repeated viewing.

An excellent film that takes a group of villagers as allegorical characters for Czechoslovakian society. The film follows these people from post-WWII (and pre- communism) to the late 50s, watching as they and their village change. In terms of the unescapable creeping feeling of dread, I was reminded of Ang Lee's _The Ice Storm_. While the film is clumsy at times (some shots or plot shifts might have been done better), the cinematography can be very resourceful. Watch also for the classic symbols of Czech identity: the geese, the white horse (from the legend of Libuse), and the old women (from the Czech novel _Babicka_). These mirror the plot nicely.

The end of the War brings a Communist government; in a small Moravian village, the hard-working, close-knit community of farmers find themselves forced to collectivize... and the singing ends.

It's a diffusely told story, centered around Radoslav Brzobohatý, who fights an increasingly lonely war of his own to remain his own man, and yet part of the community. Can a few aging farmers fight corrupt men backed by an uncaring government?

Well, this seems to have been a last gasp of individualism in a rise sea of oppression. Yes, all the scenes of beauty are group scenes, where the people gather, musical instruments magically appear, and people sing. But the brass band playing the old songs vanishes, and the most beautiful scene, where the neighbors come to help Brzobohatý harvest his wheat, is worthy of Millais.

This film tells the story of a village in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1968. Combining satire, farce, drama, poetry, and pure photo-lyricism seamlessly, it shows how politics and daily village life are interwoven in the fates of a broad spectrum of the village's inhabitants. The film's audacity and epic scope remind me of early Orson Welles--don't miss it!

'All my compatriots' (original title ' Vsichni dobrí rodáci') tells the story of seven friends from a small town in Czechoslovakia and we join them in 1948, they are on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and the new Communism is thrust on this agricultural society. The seven friends are used as a vehicle to shine a light on the shortcomings of collectivisation and the corruption that seemed to be concomitant when power is used to deprive others of wealth.

The story slowly distils to one of resistance albeit within the spirit of the law and that is in the shape of Frantisek. This was promptly banned by the Soviets after the 1968 invasion and sadly never had the impact it should have done and that is despite winning Best Director and the Jury Prizes at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.

It is filmed and framed very beautifully and all of the acting is of the highest calibre. It has a maudlin quality that is juxtaposed against the strength of will displayed by some of the main players. Some of the shots will stay with you too and very real people have been used to give added authenticity to the whole thing. This is a film for those who really appreciate cinema in all its glorious forms.