czech new wave

A brief, extraordinary flowering of Czechoslovak cinema during the political liberalisation of the 1960s, ended abruptly by the Soviet invasion of August 1968. Forman's deadpan comedies of ordinary life, Chytilová's anarchic Daisies, Menzel's lyrical Closely Watched Trains, and Němec's harrowing Diamonds of the Night share little in style but everything in spirit: a refusal of socialist-realist formula in favour of irony, formal play, and honest observation of how people actually behave.

Distinguish from

Contemporary with and inspired by the French New Wave, but more rooted in absurdist humour and social observation than in cinephilic stylistic experiment. The Czech films are funnier, warmer, and more interested in communal life than individual alienation. Some overlap with Poetic Realism through Menzel's lyrical naturalism.

Films here also carry Moral Ambiguity, Coming of Age, Institutional Corruption, Class Warfare, Artistic Obsession.