Oil Lamps

THU May 13 4:30 pm Konvikt / film hall / free admission

OIL LAMPS
Petrolejové lampy
Czechoslovakia 1971

director Juraj Herz
screenplay Václav Šašek, Lubor Dohnal, Juraj Herz
based upon the novel by Jaroslav Havlíček
director of photography Jozef Šimončič
editor Jaromír Janáček
music Luboš Fišer
cast Iva Janžurová, Petr Čepek, Marie Rosůlková, Ota Sklenčka, Vladimír Jedenáctík,
Karel Chromík, Jana Plichtová, Evelyna Steimarová, Karel Černoch, Josef Laufer


An impressive film drama bringing up the story of Štěpa, an ageing girl living in a sultry atmosphere of a little town in Bohemia at the turn of the century, surrounded by an air of misunderstanding, fake emotions and sham. Štěpa is different from other girls. Tainted with the spirit of emancipation, she behaves in a natural way and she definitely would not give in to her parents' desire to marry as quickly and as profitably as possible. Her easy ways discourage suitors from rich families in the town. Afraid of becoming a spinster, she marries her cousin Pavel, a bust officer who left the army and sees the marriage as an opportunity to overcome his financial problems. On their wedding day, Štěpa is still not aware of the terrible disease her future husband is suffering from.

 

The plot is so ingeniously laid out that there are mostly only tragicomic and sometimes bizarre subtexts arising which definitely do not point toward an ending. At first, this approach leads us to believe that a love story of a greatly naive, fading Miss Štěpa (Iva Janžurová) and the cunning and vulgar officer Malina (Petr Čepek) is going to take place. The motive of happy expectation is boosted by Jozef Šimončič's photography exploring the twilight air at a New Year's Eve celebration in a cabaret. Gradually though, the camera slips into gloomy, dusk and muddy sunless weather. The oil lamps lighting the rooms contribute to warm semidarkness which is at first promising, but later turns into disheartening obscurity. (...) The slow narrative flow, a marked effort at clinging to telling details, the pondering over seemingly trivial aspects: all of this put together builds up a highly emotional and brilliantly expressive narrative structure that may be perceived as the swan song of the strangled Czechoslovak New Wave.