L'oreille

It is very confusing! This movie was finished in 1970. To put 1990 it is so confusing. I thought it was another movie when looking for it just because of that date.

The acute paranoia of daily life behind the Iron Curtain haunts a petty bureaucrat after he overhears an indiscreet remark at a party and becomes convinced his house is under government surveillance. Not surprisingly, the film spent over two decades in official limbo for daring to paint an unflattering portrait of Big Brother, showing the unseen influence of the State in a society where privilege is bought at the cost of privacy. The story begins where Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Conversation' left off, with the anxious civil servant and his equally suspicious wife trapped in a claustrophobic, dark comic nightmare of hidden microphones, tapped telephones, and invisible prying eyes, all the time wondering why the axe of political expedience is aimed at their innocent necks. The scenario would be absurd if it weren't so unsettling, and succeeds as both a disturbing parable of totalitarian oppression and a perversely entertaining black comedy.

I've seen this a couple of days ago in a tribute to Karel Kachyna who died recently. It is simply amazing. A well connected party/government (same thing) aparatchik and wife get driven back to their villa from a state reception to find their keys missing, house unlocked, without electricity, working telephone. They are being snippy with each other to start with, but when the man starts getting a little paranoid about the situation and starts getting little flashbacks from the reception (his immediate boss - a minister - and several colleagues are not present there, some ppl express mild suprise he is there himself, he is obviously not privy to certain hush-hush information, their chaffeur is missing and the place is full of "cliftons" i.e. secret police (get me a salmon, that's the red thing:)) they both really deteriorate into panic, accusssations, dragging long-forgotten things into open... The point is they know they are being listened to, but their safe haven are the toilets, the bathroom and the kitchen where the bugging devices are not ordinarily placed... but not for long I cannot imagine how did Mr. K imagine this thing would be released ever. It's a miracle it only got shelved and can remind us nowadays how bad it really was...It is one of the most thruthfull portrayals of uncertanities of love and life back then

As other reviewers mentioned, there are indeed echoes of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", so this movie is WAOTVF + a political drama thriller. If that sounds interesting to you, watch it, it definitely won't disappoint you. It takes place in one night, it's very interesting, script is "tight", not a single second is wasted, good use of flashbacks and the acting is great.

It's not a masterpiece though like WAOTVW. Furthermore, i won't say that some things didn't make sense but i didn't get convinced entirely, i mean, during the last 20 minutes or so, a character was too hostile against the other and this character's transition was not so smooth. It didn't feel real, whereas during the first hour, it was like watching a real couple arguing with each other.

Despite these flaws, this is a good movie.

In a world where communism is really a threat to people's privacy, suspicion can drive you mad. Not only are you endlessly going over all your interactions with everyone you know, but you'll start to suspect those closest to you as well. This can build to a crescendo, until you actually find that you are being listened to. The lighting early on in this film is a great technique to build the suspense, which just adds to the insanity of communism.