Éclairage intime

This virtually perfect little movie, shot inexpensively and even using some amateurs in the cast, deserves far greater exposure -- it's not even on video. Here is a wry yet sympathetic look at the human condition, and also the great role that music (in many forms) can play in life. If only the US film industry could recast itself to be able to produce truly genuine works like Intimate Lighting.

Distinguished Prague cellist Peter is engaged by his old music school friend, Bambas, to play a concert in his hometown. Peter arrives with his sexy cosmopolitain girlfriend drawing the line for comaprison, contrast and low key comic results with the locals.

Intimate Lighting is a touching story with little happening besides minor frustrations, petty annyances and subtle insights. Nothing monumental over the course of the film arises yet you are lured by the charming sincerity of the players and the wan humor lapsing into absurdity along the way. Most of the actors are one and done which hints at the fact they were musicians first, yet they all give highly plausible performances conveying love, loss, viewpoint on life and disappointment.

Director Ivan Passer does a fine job of molding and pacing the rather banal storyline and pumping life into it with some nuanced characerization and comic deadpan similar to the work of future Jim Jarmucsh minus the hipsterism. Intimate Lighting is touching slic of life.

The film before "Born to Win" (made in the USA in 1971), which is very good, this "Intimate Lighting" made in 1965 in Czechoslovakia, is good, very natural but also very boring and totally uninteresting. Without a proper action, just talking and talking in a house, several characters who say only their commonalities. In the role of Stepa, Vera Kresadlová, the wife of the great Milos Forman. The film made by Ivan Passer before this "Intimate Lighting" it's called "A Boring Afternoon", a short film with a very suggestive title...

I'm assuming that if you've stumbled across this review, you have some interest in "Intimate Lighting", to which I might also add you probably know something or other about the Czech New Wave. This film is squarely in the Czech New Wave, but I must say I detest the use of the phrase "New Wave" (those ruinous French again).

Anyway, if I assume these things (which I'm certainly not allowed to), I submit that this film is a Must-See.

This is a film of remarkable simplicity. The camera is detached from any character's point of view and approaches the characters objectively, no judgment, which gives the film a bit of silliness (in an entirely humane way). Its simplicity and silliness are almost profound in their subtle implications of life.

And the ending -- oh, the ending! -- is what will likely vault the film high in a viewer's memory. The film is short (I love short films), so the ending springs on you almost unexpectedly. I won't ruin it, of course, but the ending is a masterpiece of subtlety (as a certain idol of mine might call it, a "moment") that lays bare (to the astute viewer) the simplicity and absurdity of humanity and our habits.

Key word: simplicity. I'm sure you're tired of my using it, but this is what gives "Intimate Lighting" (and some other CNW films) its power. And in its spirit, I've kept this review as simple as possible and hope that those of you reading this who express interest in seeing this film see it as soon as you can. If you have seen it, share your thoughts and encourage others to watch it. It is a must-see.