Slovak Film of the 1940s and 1950s

The Slovak Film Institute, in association with Petit Press, has issued a collection of ten Slovak films made in the 1940s and 1950s. Director Paľo Bielik is prominently represented in this collection – Wolves’ Lairs (Vlčie diery), Forty-Four Mutineers (Štyridsaťštyri) and Captain Dabač (Kapitán Dabač). Bielik also participated in the making of Beware (Varúj…!) where he also starred in the title role. The collection also includes full-length feature débuts by directors Peter Solan and František Žáček (The Devil Never Sleeps/Čert nespí), Jozef Medveď (The Quadrille/Štvorylka), Vladislav Pavlovič (St. Peter’s Umbrella/Dáždnik svätého Petra, in collaboration with director Frigyes Bán) and Ján Kadár (Cathy/Katka), who later won an Academy Award for The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze) made in collaboration with Elmar Klos. Ján Lacko’s comedy Luck Will Come on Sunday (Šťastie príde v nedeľu) and the musical comedy by Josef Mach Native Land (Rodná zem) complete the collection. The DVD contains an English menu and subtitles.

 

Slovak Film of the 1960s I and II

This collection of films focuses on the 1960s. There are a total of 21 DVDs in two special packs. In addition to a later documentary November 1989 As Seen by Slovak Documakers (November 1989 očami slovenských dokumentaristov), the collection contains e.g. the following titles: Jánošík (Jánošík, dir. P. Bielik), The Song of the Grey Pigeon (Pieseň o sivom holubovi, dir. S. Barabáš), The Sun in a Net (Slnko v sieti, dir. Š. Uher), The Boxer and Death (Boxer a smrť, dir. P. Solan), The Organ (Organ, dir. Š. Uher), Dragon’s Return (Drak sa vracia, dir. E. Grečner), Our Daily Day… (Deň náš každodenný… , dir. O. Krivánek), The Prime of Life (Kristove roky, dir. J. Jakubisko), Celebration in the Botanical Garden (Slávnosť v botanickej záhrade, dir. E. Havetta), 322 (322, dir. D. Hanák), Before Tonight Is Over (Kým sa skončí táto noc, dir. P. Solan), The Bells Toll for the Barefooted (Zvony pre bosých, dir. S. Barabáš), The Wonder-Maid (Panna zázračnica, dir. Š. Uher), Three Daughters (Tri dcéry, dir. Š. Uher), A Pact with the Devil (Zmluva s diablom, dir. J. Zachar) or Birdies, Orphans and Fools (Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni, dir. J. Jakubisko). Again, an English menu and subtitles are available.

 

Pictures of the Old World

One of the finest films of Slovak cinematography – the documentary Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta) was made in 1972. It was made by director Dušan Hanák, inspired by the photographic series created by Martin Martinček. Hanák visited remote corners of the country in order to uncover the inner beauty of old people and sensitively read their “stories” from their faces and hands. “I admired those old people for a number of reasons. They lived on the margins of civilisation, sometimes excluded from the village community, and their wisdom was related to their inner strength and positive thinking. They had both humour and universal humanity,” said the director in an interview for Film.sk. The DVD bonuses include Hanák’s extraordinary short films Old Shatterhand Came to See Us (Prišiel k nám Old Shatterhand), Artists (Artisti), Learning (Učenie), The Mass (Omša), A Day of Joy (Deň radosti). The DVD contains an English menu and subtitles in several languages, including English.

 

The Man Who Lies/Eden and After

This double DVD contains full-length feature films made by the French screenwriter and director Alain Robbe-Grillet. He made The Man Who Lies (L’homme qui ment/Muž, ktorý luže) and Eden and After in French-Slovak co-productions. The first was made in 1968 and the famous French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant played the title role of a foreigner through whom the director develops mystifying games. However, Slovak actors such as Zuzana Kocúriková and Ivan Mistrík star alongside Trintignant. Igor Luther was the cinematographer of the film; Robbe-Grillet collaborated with him also on the second co-production project Eden and After (L’éden et après/Eden a potom, 1970). This film again is about pretending, playing, spinning yarns and merging the border between imagination and reality. In addition to French actors, Juraj Kukura and Jarmila Koleničová also play in the film. Both DVDs contain French and English menus and subtitles.

 

Jurko the Brigand

The Bloody Lady

The Slovak Film Institute also issued on DVD two full-length animated films made by the prominent personality of Slovak cinema, Viktor Kubal. His Jurko the Brigand (Zbojník Jurko, 1976) is a peculiar telling of the legend of the well-known Slovak brigand Juro Jánošík and The Bloody Lady (Krvavá pani, 1980) was in turn inspired by the legend of the Bloody Lady of Čachtice – Countess Elizabeth Báthory. In both cases, Kubal was in charge of directing, script, animation and visual design and in both instances not only the visual concept of the film but also the author’s unique feeling for gags, imaginative short-cuts or metaphors has to be appreciated. To date, Jurko the Brigand and The Bloody Lady have been the only two Slovak full-length animated films. The DVDs have an English menu and subtitles in several languages, including English.

 

Slovak Animated Film

The collection of sixteen short animated films offers works made by significant Slovak filmmakers of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Of course, Viktor Kubal is widely represented on the DVD, but it also contains films made by the world-renowned Czech artist and director, Jan Švankmajer who made To the Cellar (Do pivnice) in a Slovak production, Ivan Popovič (Dream the Guard/ Strážca sen), Jaroslava Havettová (Contacts/Kontakty, Song/Pieseň – together with I. Popovič), Vlastimil Herold (Little Mouse Cooked a Gruel/Varila myšička kašičku, The Magician and the Flower Girl/Kúzelník a kvetinárka), Dagmar Bučanová (A Ballad in Lace/Balada v čipke), František Jurišič (The Wise Little Pig/Múdre prasiatko, Cock-a-doodle-doo/Ki-ki-ri-kí), Helena Slavíková- Rabarová (Spring/Jar), Ondrej Slivka (Umbrella/Dáždnik) and Vladimír Malík (Baby in the Bank/Bábätko v banke). The footage is 141 minutes in all and the DVD is provided with an English menu and subtitles in several languages, including English.