Recommend Books and Movie

Travel Books 

For more travel guides and books about Prague and the Czech Republic, visit selected Amazon store.

Books

I Served the King of England

Author: Bohumil Hrabal, 1989

"Written in the form of a memoir, this playful social satire follows the rise and fall of a diminutive Czech waiter while mirroring the political turmoil of recent Czech history. Gleefully chronicling the grossness and corruption of the 1920s, Hrabal makes Ditie's early life delightful reading. The mood turns abruptly sour when Ditie falls in love with a German gym teacher in the '30s and becomes equally enamoured of her Nazi ideaology. After the war, Ditie is sentenced to prison as a collaborator; then becomes a hotelier with profits made from selling rare stamps stolen from Jewish concentration camp victims. He hopes to curry favor with his former employers, but they disdainfully ignore him. By the end of the book, with the coming of communism, Ditie has lost everything; he is banished to the former Sudetenland, with only some farm animals as company. The book begins brilliantly, but Hrabal's depiction of post-WW II Czechoslovakia is unrealistically rosy, and Ditie's moral transformation is not entirely persuasive. But the novel is always witty, often wise, and sparkles in Wilson's beautiful translation."  [review from amazon]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Author: Milan Kundera

"Novel by Milan Kundera, first published in 1984 in an English translation and in a French translation as L'Insoutenable Legerete de l'etre. In 1985 the work was published in the original Czech as Nesnesitelna lehkost byti, but it was banned in Czechoslovakia until 1989. Set against the background of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, the novel concerns a young Czech physician who substitutes a series of erotic adventures over which he thinks he can maintain control for becoming involved in his country's politics, where he feels he can have no power or freedom. Inevitably, he is drawn into Czechoslovakia's political unrest. In a parallel vein, he is forced to choose among the women with whom he is involved."  [review from amazon]

 

 

Movie

Closely Watched Trains (1966)

Starring: Vaclav Neckar, Josef Somr . Director: Jiri Menzel

"Jiri Menzel's funny, tragic 1966 film, set during the years of Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia, may be admired today more out of nostalgia than anything, but in fact it holds up very well as a wry satire from the years of the Czech New Wave. Vaclav Neckar stars as an unambitious youth whose chief preoccupation is a wish for sex, but who secondarily sees the draw of joining the organized Resistance movement. The latter, however, would require energy and focus, and Neckar's character--who does as little work as possible as an apprentice railway platform guard--prefers the inertia of his small-town depot. Spending his time observing the philandering of an older guard, keeping clear of his wild-eyed boss, and flirting with the female conductor of a passing train, the young hero has his priorities in order but must deal with an increasing responsibility to a larger rebellion. The film has a nice mix of rural lethargy, surreal hints, and comic knowingness about the landscape of teenage ambivalence. Finally, there is something else: the shock of a confrontation between dreams and real-world obligation, particularly in a world gone mad through no fault of one's own."  [review from amazon ]

The Firemen's Bal (1968)

Starring: Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebanek. Director: Milos Forman

"A milestone of the Czech New Wave, Milos Forman's first color film The Firemen's Ball (Hori, ma panenko) is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative political satire. A hilarious saga of good intentions confounded, the story chronicles a firemen's ball where nothing goes right-from a beauty pageant whose reluctant participants embarrass the organizers to a lottery from which nearly all the prizes are pilfered. Presumed to be a commentary on the floundering Czech leadership, the film was "banned forever" in Czechoslovakia following the Russian invasion and prompted Forman's move to America."  [review from amazon ]

 

Kafka (1991)

Starring: Jeremy Irons, Theresa Russell. Director: Steven Soderbergh

"The sophomore effort by Steven Soderbergh (sex, lies, and videotape) is an audacious and stylistically impressive experiment in a completely different direction from his debut. Working from a script by Lem Dobbs, Soderbergh follows the miserable day-to-day existence of Franz Kafka (Jeremy Irons), an insurance clerk in a large, impersonal company. Hiding out in his garret at night, he writes material he assumes no one will ever read. But then he happens upon clues that make him believe there is some plot afoot to suppress thought and he follows the trail into a hidden sanctuary, at which point the film abruptly shifts from shadowy black and white to jarring color. It doesn't all work, but it is never less than intriguing, with a cast that includes Alec Guinness, Ian Holm, and Joel Grey"  [review from amazon]

Kolya (1997)

Starring: Zdenek Sverak, Andrei Chalimon Director: Jan Sverak

Won both 1997 Oscar and Golden Globe awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Prague 1988

"Franta Louka is a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, a confirmed bachelor and a lady's man. Having lost his place in the state orchestra, he must make ends meet by playing at funerals and painting tombstones. But he has run up a large debt, and when his friend, the grave-digger Mr. Broz, suggests a scheme for making a lot of money by marrying a Russian woman so that she can get her Czech papers, he reluctantly agrees. She takes advantage of the situation to emigrate to West Germany, to her lover; and leaves her five-year-old son with his grandmother; when the grandmother dies, Kolya must come and live with his stepfather"  [review from amazon ]

Loves of a Blonde (1966)

Starring: Hana Brejchova, Vladimir Pucholt.  Director: Milos Forman

Nominated for Oscar.

"With sixteen women to each man, the odds are against Andula in her desperate search for love-that is, until a rakish piano player visits her small factory town and temporarily eases her longings. A tender and humorous look at Andula's journey, from the first pangs of romance to its inevitable disappointments, Loves of a Blonde (Lasky jedne plavovlasky) immediately became a classic of the Czech New Wave and earned Milos Forman the first of his Academy Award nominations."  [review from amazon]

 

Loves of a Blonde (1966)

Starring: Janos Ban, Marian Labuda Director: Jiri Menzel

"Comedy about the people who inhabit a small town. For years the overbearing Pavek has endured Otik, the "town idiot," sharing his meals and the front seat of their dump truck. But Otik is such a sweet-natured fool that Pavek, exasperated as he becomes, always relents on his threats to find another partner. This Laurel and Hardy-like pair are at the heart of a comedy which finds humor in an abundance of everyday situations. The town doctor regularly wrecks his car because he's admiring the scenery, a romantic teenager develops a hopeless crush on his sister's schoolteacher, and an adulterous housewife and her boyfriend are just one step ahead of her suspicious, hot-headed husband."  [review from amazon]

 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Starring: Juliette Binoche, Daniel Day-Lewis. Director: Philip Kaufman

"Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, the happily irresponsible Czech lover of Milan Kundera's novel, which is set in Prague just before and during the Soviet invasion in 1968. Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are the two vastly different women who occupy his attention and to some extent represent different sides of his values and personality. In any case, the character's decision to flee Russian tanks with one of them--and then return--has profound consequences on his life. Directed by Philip Kaufman, this rich, erotic, fascinating character study with allegorical overtones is a touchstone for many filmgoers. Several key sequences--such as Olin wearing a bowler hat and writhing most attractively--linger in the memory, while Kaufman's assured sense of the story inspires superb performances all around."  [review from amazon]

Zelary (2003)

Starring: Anna Geislerova, Gyorgy Cserhalmi Director: Ondrej Trojan

"Two very different people meet and fall in love in "Zelary," the Oscar-nominated (Best Foreign Language Film, 2003) romantic epic from director Ondrej Trojan. Eliska, a sophisticated medical student, first meets Joza at a Prague hospital, where her blood saves the injured sawmill worker's life. But Eliska also works with the Czech resistance and when she's betrayed to the Gestapo, Joza agrees to hide the young woman in his romote mountain village of Zelary. Forced to marry the rough-hewn peasant and pose as his wife, Eliska is at first defiant and angry. But with the passing of time, she comes to realize that there's more to Joza than first meets the eye. And so, even as the war rages around them, Eliska and Joza soon find themselves deeply and passionately in love, until an unexpected twist of fate threatens to put their extraordinary romance to the ultimate test."  [review from amazon ]

And remember to check out "I Served the King of England." This movie was recently released and not yet available on DVD.

For more books and films about Prague and the Czech Republic, visit selected Amazon store.