One of the considerable virtues of the Finále festival of Czech films at Plzeň is the opportunity to see films in a wider context. There are not only the new features and documentaries from the past year but also a Slovak section and a variety of retrospective screenings.
This year, for the 14th festival, there were no less than 17 sections—as well as concerts and exhibitions that included, for instance, pen-aniline (pen and coloured ink) drawings by Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko (selected from 40 years work) and a retrospective tribute to Jiří Suchý and the Semafor Theatre.
This year's featured themes included a second year of tributes to the 1960s under the heading of "the wildest decade of Czech cinematography," devoted to the year 1961, with films by Václav Krška, Václav Gajer, František Vláčil, and Karel Kachyňa.
After the party
The sixties, of course, always provides a point of reference, and with new films by Jan Němec, Věra Chytilová, Karel Vachek, Drahomira Vihanová and Jan Švankmajer, its traditions were very much in evidence. Robert Buchar's two-hour-plus documentary Sametová kocovina (Velvet Hangover, 2000), devoted to interviews with the sixties generation, attracted a good deal of attention and seems the logical place to start this review.
Buchar, who emigrated to the USA in 1980, has produced an intriguing historical document which charts the state of Czech cinema in the sixties, under the years of Normalisation in the seventies and eighties, and its encounter with the new economic "liberalism" of the nineties. While it doesn't have aspirations to be anything other than a "talking heads" documentary, he provides his participants with the opportunity to present a portrait of an era.
Probably the most perceptive comments come from directors such as Jiří Krejčík, Antonín Máša and the former cinematographer Stanislav Milota. There are also contributions from Jiří Menzel, Ivan Passer, Vihanová, Němec, Chytilová and Vachek. The post-89 generation is represented by Saša Gedeon, Jan Svěrák, Jaroslav Brabec and Zuzana Zemanová.
Many directors who had some chance of realising their projects under the nationalised system now have none, and it is natural that they should be disillusioned with the privatisation of the Barrandov studios ("the selling of the family silver"). But the key change resides in the objectives of Czech cinema.
In the sixties, the cinema was seen as something more than entertainment: "We learned to tell the truth—that is no longer fashionable" (Milota); "the objective was 'what to say'" (Máša); "films should come from the inner-self and the problems of the time" (Chytilová); "a good film must be a revolution in expression" (Vachek); "in the sixties, film was a source of ideas" (Gedeon), "I'm used to the idea that film should be the cultural responsibility of government" (Vihanová).
In contrast, notes Saša Gedeon, the present-day objective of cinema is to provide entertainment and is determined by market values. Zemanová suggests perceptively that this may be a world problem: the sixties—"the time of reflection"—are over and "maybe we are not experiencing very much." Maybe, says Máša, the contemporary generation takes things as they are. Milota, in the context of the world's political and social conflicts, the problems of North vs South, notes that the media can exhibit only boredom and indifference.
A bad year for a good national cinema
But what of the films in competition? Many of us were impressed by the range and diversity of the Czech films shown at last year's festival and while, if you subtract Švankmajer's Otesánek (2000), this year's selection is less interesting, as one colleague put it, the creative range is still wider than that of many post-Communist cinemas (or indeed Western cinemas).
Any competition line up that includes Švankmajer's rigorously surrealist film, Vachek's four-hour-plus philosophical essay Bohemia docta (2000) or the inventive and humorous feature documentary Bitva o život (Battle for Life, 2000), co-directed by Miroslav Janek, Vít Janeček and Roman Vávra, suggests—against the odds—that market values do not have it all their own way.
The visual elegance of Petr Václav's Paralelní světy (Parallel Worlds, 2001), which shared the main prize with Otesánek, and the originality of Aurel Klimt's animation in his contribution to Šest statečných (The Magnificent Six, 2000) shows the art of cinema to be still very much alive. In fact, of the 20 films in competition, nearly half were made with no explicit commitment to market values and, of the remainder, many were attempting to achieve something else as well.
Three of what might be viewed as intelligent audience-directed films have already been reviewed in depth in CER (Kytice / Wild Flowers aka A Bouquet, 2000; Cesta z města / Out of the City, 2000; and Anděl exit / Angel Exit, 2000).
F A Brabec's adaptation of Erben's folk/fairy tale collection, A Bouquet, emphasises the perfection of the visual and, in this sense, represents the polar opposite of Švankmajer's approach in Otesánek. While domestic audiences may view it as a sometimes over-elaborate visualisation of a familiar subject, the film could certainly interest foreign audiences, where the cruelty and horror of the original has the power to surprise and shock.
Tomáš Vorel's Cesta z města, with its story of a computer programmer and his return to an idyllic but frequently cruel countryside, is a work of some ambition and complexity, with an impressive performance by Tomáš Hanák in the central role. However, its theatrical interactions sometimes restrict its appeal.
film of Jáchym Topol's novel, it registers very much as a triumph of style over substance. 
no doubt satisfy the popular culture agenda of media academics. Both are stories of young love and depend substantially on their use of music. 
wife, Tereza (Lenka Vlasáková). The crisis leads him to embark on an affair. 
An obnoxious little girl, in between rejecting the overtures of a lascivious old man, notices parallels with the story of Otesánek and takes pity on the creature. The interpenetration of animation with the "real" world will not disappoint Švankmajer enthusiasts and, in its greater concern with narrative, the film will probably reach wider audiences. 
in the Orlické mountains, a former textile region experiencing significant economic and demographic change. 
His characteristic overlapping of interviews, themes and dialogue soon moves from the title's juxtaposition of Comenius and Dante to Marx, Alfons Mucha's Slav Epic and the Plastic People of the Universe. His multilevel discussion, interspersed with a taxonomy of mushrooms and castles, ranges from discussions of Roma culture and racism to the writer and artist Josef Váchal, the composer Lukeš, the reopening of the Slavia restaurant, the complex workings of the former security police and comparisons between Dubček and Oldřich Nový, to the poster of Václav Klaus in place of the Stalin monument. 
Vzlety a pády (Flights and Falls, 2000), which was screened last year, it seemed at best a disappointment—although it is unfair to comment without seeing the complete film. 
odvahu (Everyday Courage), scripted by Máša, makes an interesting parallel. This story of a disillusioned foreman in a factory linked politics, society, the professional and the personal in a way that none of the new films have attempted.
