Dos vidas

Such a quiet little movie and so unconventional that it won't be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it, and it stuck with me. The parallel stories of a housewife (Vera Uzelacová) and gymnast (real-life gold medalist Eva Bosáková) in Czechoslovakia are separate, but there is commonality in what director Vera Chytilová is showing us. I suppose it's in some of the obvious things, like the mother going through her morning routine just as the gymnast warms up and practices, and also in the wonderful touch of feminism the film has. I got the sense that both housewife and gymnast were being put through their paces by men, with the housewife being taken for granted and mostly ignored by her husband when he gets home from work, and the gymnast patiently enduring her coach pushing her. They are both beautiful, thoughtful, hard-working women. The gymnast achieves after a tremendous amount of discipline and hard work, and the housewife takes control of her own body in having an affair, and then later holds her family together. All of it is done in such a light, graceful way, and with some really nice framing and camera angles from the first-time director. To do this non-conformist film in such an artistic way, and dealing with chauvinism and the heavy weight of the communist State - it impresses me all the more. What is the movie about? Probably more than it would appear; a woman expressing herself, and the truths of women.

While "O nécem jiném" may not be quite as mind-bending as Chytilová's later fare ("Sedmikrásky" remains one of my all-time favourite films), this - her debut feature - already features some of the trademarks that marks her as one of - if not the - greatest of Czechoslovakian filmmakers. Beautifully mixing between fiction and documentary, with drama and humor and some truly unique shoot compositions and editing, Chytilová shows from the very get-go just how talented she was.

The plot summary for this is tripe. Suppressed women, male dominated society blah de blah. One woman (the gymnast) is coached by a man AND a woman and ends up a coach herself. The other woman, after no doubt leading the man into marriage and kids, then decides this isn't for her and finds it frustrating. Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? Isn't the man as much of a victim of societal pressures and expectations? I enjoyed some of the shots and editing, and at times felt I could watch the wonderful Eva Bosáková all day, but there isn't any story here, very little characterisation, and not a great deal of talent on show from Chytilova, who made her reputation with the wildly experimental but overrated DAISIES. Some of these directors just thought a storyline was disposable if they filmed with jaunty angles in black and white.