The World of Jiri Trnka volume 1 – The Good Soldier Svejk / Dobry vojak Svejk (1955) DVD5
on April 5th, 2016 at 08:43
Volume 1 features three episodes of The Good Soldier Svejk (1955), short The Hand / Ruka (1965) and Trailers.
The Good Soldier Svejk
The story begins in Prague with news of the assassination in Sarajevo that precipitates World War I.
Svejk displays such enthusiasm about faithfully serving the Austrian Emperor in battle that no one can decide whether he is merely an imbecile or is craftily undermining the war effort. However, he is arrested by a member of the secret police, Bretschneider, after making some politically sensitive remarks, and is sent to prison. After being certified insane he is transferred to a madhouse, before being ejected.
Svejk gets his charwoman to wheel him (he claims to be suffering from rheumatism) to the recruitment offices in Prague, where his apparent zeal causes a minor sensation. Unfortunately, he is transferred to a hospital for malingerers because of his rheumatism. He finally joins the army as batman to army chaplain Otto Katz; Katz loses him at cards to Lieutenant Lukas, whose batman he then becomes...
The Hand
The central situation in The Hand could hardly be simpler: a humble craftsman devotes his life to making clay flowerpots. Though his existence is basic, living in a one-room flat with minimal furniture and peeling wallpaper, he seems blissfully content with his existence, even to the point of bowing before the flowers growing out of his creations. And then, after being alerted by the sound of feet echoing down a corridor’s bare floor, he hears a knock at the door...
Though it has a clear political purpose in highlighting the plight of the artist under a totalitarian cultural policy, it also comes across as deeply personal, as Trnka himself was all too conscious of the way he had personally benefited from a regime that he secretly despised. As a political parable, it has all the impact of the work of Jan Svankmajer (who had then just begun his film career and the following year would make the first of several films in Trnka’s own studio with technicians who worked on The Hand) but without the younger man’s naked aggression, and this quiet fatalism gives it much of its power.
DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:35:42 | 3.92 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Czech(Ceske) (Dolby AC3, 2 ch)
Subtitles: Chinese, Japanese
Genre: Animation, Drama, Comedy, War
Director: Jiri Trnka
Country: Czechoslovakia
Tip movieworld with Cryptocurrency
Donate Bitcoin to movieworld
Donate Bitcoin Cash to movieworld
Donate Ethereum to movieworld
Donate Litecoin to movieworld
Donate Monero to movieworld
Donate ZCash to movieworld