ANTHROPOID

Writer-director-cinematographer Sean Ellis (CASHBACK) returns to our screens with a period thriller based on the true story of the assassination of the SS officer Reinhard Heydrich during World War Two.  Operation Anthropoid had Czech soldier parachuted back into the country by the British, collaborating with what was left of the Czech Resistance, scouting out Heydrich's typical route out of Prague Castle, to gun him down. History tells us that the initial attack was thought a failure, but that Heydrich did indeed die of his wounds.  The men responsible for the assassination - the only successful high-ranking assassination of a Nazi - were betrayed and after a courageous 6 hour gunfight in a church - killed. The SS razed villages and killed thousands of Czechs in reprisal. But Czecho was, as a result, seen as an ally and the Munich Agreement nullified.

It's testament to the film that despite knowing the history of Anthropoid, I was genuinely gripped by it.  The tension of planning and executing the attack was painful and the final shoot-out in the Church exquisitely choreographed and genuinely emotionally affecting. Most of all, the brutal scenes of torture were truly unforgettable and a final moral confrontation haunting.  I also love the fact that Ellis chooses to shoot the film in Prague, using many Czech actors to lend the film authenticity, and indeed show the source material respect. The problem is, however, that it forces his British lead actors into adopting what I am sure they must think are Czech accents. The film survives because of the force of Cillian Murphy's lead performance, which more than offsets Jaime Dornan's weaker contribution.

ANTHROPOID is rated R and has a running time of 120 minutes. The film is on release in the USA and UK.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 14 - SURVIVING LIFE (THEORY AND PRACTICE) / PREZIT SVUK ZIVOT (TEORIE A PRAXE)

SURVIVING LIFE is a classic Svan Jankmajer film: animation interspersed with live footage to create a surreal vision of life - at once a Kafka-esque nightmare, and very, very, funny! In this particular flick, Eugene is a middle-aged, happily married man, who has a surreal dream about a young, beautiful, sexy woman in red (Klára Issová). In his waking life he tries all manner of old-wives tales to recreate that dream, and even resorts to psychotherapy to find herself again. The problem is that the psychotherapist is basically using techniques that answer what the dream is really about and so eliminate it. All under the mocking gaze of portraits of Jung and Freud who alternatively laugh, roll their eyes and applaud.

SURVIVING LIFE is witty, funny, imaginative, surreal but also somehow authentic in how it portrays the way in which we can still be bowled over by a crush way past our teenage years. I really believed that Eugene was captivated by his lady in red, but also that he was a decent guy. And even though Czech art-house animation might not leap out at you, I would encourage anyone who wants a more sophisticated version of a rom-com, with a light touch of the Terry Gilliams, to check this out.

SURVIVING LIFE played Venice and will be released in the Czech Republic on November 4th 2010.

Overlooked film of the month - I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND - brilliantly eccentric

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND is the misleading title for a brilliantly satirical, eccentric and often surreal comedy from Czech auteur, Jiri Menzel. It tells the fabulous/fabulist life of Jan Dite, an unassuming everyman waiter in Prague who tangles with Nazis, Communists, runs a hotel, serves time, serves luscious food and has comically choreographed sex. It's a leisurely paced two hour stroll through absurd tales of survival in brutal regimes - the film Kafka would've made if he had a food fetish, a fondness for silent movies, and a sense of humour.

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND won the FIPRESCI prize at Berlin 2007. It was released in 2007 and 2008 and is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - CEKSY SEN / CZECH DREAM

CZECH DREAM is a little like SUPERSIZE ME in that it's a documentary that centres on a single, brilliant idea. In this case, the two directors decide to fake the opening of a new Czech hypermarket. They have makeovers so that they look the part of corporate managers; they hire a marketing team to plaster the Czech Republic with posters advertising the grand opening; they sit back and wait for the people to come. While they're waiting they interviews shoppers, store workers and marketing men about the consumer revolution that the Czech Republic has undergone over the past decade. Here is a nation that experienced decades of rationed consumption under Communism, now collectively buying into the dream of sparkling, inviting aisles stacked with every kind of produce you could ever want, and lots that you don't need. Feel the calm satisfaction of the bulging trolley! Turn up to a grand opening, believe the hype! A wonderful allegory for EU membership? I'm not convinced. But as a slice of social history in a transition economy - yesterday the Czech Republic, today China - this is fascinating stuff.

CZECH DREAM played London 2004 and was released in the Czech Republic that year. It opened in the UK in 2005 and is available on DVD.

LUNACY/SILENI - God is a monster; art is dead; the lunatics are running the asylum and they are our only hope of liberty

A young man, Jean, is plagued by nightmares in which he suffers his mother's fate: he is placed in a straight-jacket by two menacing asylum guards. By chance he meets a strange old man who calls himself the Marquis and dresses and acts like Sade. For an hour we see the Marquis act out elaborate scenes with Jean as an unwitting and repulsed victim. But the Marquis has benign intentions. He hopes to liberate Jean from his nightmares by confronting him with his fears. Jean is give the option of voluntarily entering an asylum that has been taken over by its inmates.

LUNACY is the latest film from Czech surrealist, puppet-maker and film-maker, Jan Svankmajer. His films are self-declared political statements: surrealism in opposition to the Soviet obligation for realism. More practically, LUNACY is an unconventional riff on stories by Edgar Allen Poe and Sade. It's avowed intention is to repulse, to shock and to accurately depict a world gone mad. To this end, beautifully designed live-action footage shows the asylum and its in-mates. This is interspersed with stop-motion animation of fleshy tongues, eye-balls and brains pulsating and squelching through houses and workrooms. Flesh seems to have a "mind of its own". And obeying the desires of the flesh in a sort of rebellion against the tyranny of society.

The combination of black comedy, horror, live-action and animation yields a movie that is the bizarre, funny and disturbing. It is without a doubt the most provocative and inventive film I have seen this year, and is not to be missed.

LUNACY opened in the Czech Republic in 2005 and in Japan and Slovakia in 2006. It is currently playing in the UK. It is also available on Region 1 DVD.