1970 ‘Ucho’ Directed by Karel Kachyňa
Senior ministry official Ludvik and his wife Anna come back from an official party only to find their home has been broken into and is riddled with listening devices. A harrowing night follows as the couple becomes more and more paranoid that they’re being targeted by the government.
Radoslav Brzobohatý Jiřina Bohdalová Jiří Císler Miloslav Holub Milica Kolofíková Jaroslav Moučka Ladislav Křiváček Alois Mottl František Němec Bronislav Poloczek Josef Šulc Jan Teplý Bořivoj Navrátil Jindřich Narenta Gustav Opočenský Ivan Palúch Daniela Bartáková Lubor Tokoš Karel Vlček Karel Vašíček Alice Auspergerová Jan Bartoš Ladislav Krečmer Jana Hana Duffková Galina Kopaněva Zdeněk Hradilák Hynek Kubasta Miroslav Nesvadba Vladimír Zátka Show All…
Orelha, Øret, L'Oreille, Örat, Ухото, 监听, 귀, La oreja
France
Cannes Film Festival
Czechia
Czechia
France
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When the monster is what houses you, what surrounds you, what supports you, what gives and takes life. It is aware of you at all times, but wants you to act as if you know it is aware but to act like you are not aware. The monster has already swallowed you, but not only that. You are what constitutes the monster, you are a vital, yet replaceable part of its structure. The monster consumes itself as it goes along, as indifferent to day-to-day internal changes as you might be to dead skin cells flaking off or hair being shed. The scary thing about this monster is that to be a constituent aspect of it, one must be monstrous oneself, to replicate the violence, the unconcern for its component parts. When there is only the monster what the monster fears is itself. To be always be stalking itself as prey, to always be hiding from itself as predator.
From a voyeuristic point of view (the role Kachyňa deftly assigned the audience by virtue of the given themes of privacy and surveillance in the film.. not to mention the intimate communications and revelations shared between our protagonists felt like a private affair) the film captured the inevitable erosion of the human facade when fear, paranoia and panic set in! The unmasking can be a tumultuous ordeal, both painful and breathtakingly beautiful to witness when every last bone of contention is stripped bare!
Radoslav Brzobohatý and Jirina Bohdalová elevated the film with weighty performances we won't soon forget! Their characters Ludvik and Anna convincingly gave up the ghost (facades)! It was then and only then we fully invested ourselves in…
Opening with high-ranking Communist official Ludvík and his drunk wife Anna coming home from a party one night, Ludvík, played by Radoslav Brzobohatý, soon starts to speculate that their home has been put under surveillance by their government. He becomes progressively confident that he is the target for political removal and the direction from Karel Kachyna, which is perpetually visually innovative, exemplifies perspectives which underscore Ludvík's accumulating terror.
The uncomfortable circumstances cause new difficulties in the already troubled relationship, and scenes of Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová) insulting him for his timidity and opportunism summon up thoughts of Mike Nichols directed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The couple's deterioration and the hurling disagreements in their home juxtaposed with Ludvík's subjectivity and clambering…
After the numerous and specific comparisons between this film and three other recurring ones mentioned in previously written reviews, I thought I knew what to expect going in and for the most part the similarities between all were appropriate. However the film still remains an entangled web of lies and deceit that no one can see coming. An absolute brilliant study of living in paranoia and fear of a Totalitarian state brought up close and personal through the intimate lives of an unhappily married couple.
The married couple serving as the film's main protagonist and their often venomous interactions between one another are what draw the comparison to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but that is where the similarities end.…
European Cinema Binge #8 (Czechoslovakia)
“Let the Ear hear this.”
When someone says “controversial horror”, I think Cannibal Holocaust, A Serbian Film, Salò. Ucho is a comparatively mild Horror/Drama, yet it was banned and censored for almost two decades by the oppressive Communist Party.
Ucho was completed by 1970 but didn’t grace the screens of mainstream audiences until the Velvet Revolution 1989. The film hails from the historical sovereign state Czechoslovakia, which today is part Czech Republic, part Slovakia, and part Ukraine.
The piece opens with an ominous shot of an ear, foreshadowing themes of surveillance and voyeurism. A drunken Anna and an annoyed Ludvik - an official in the Communist Party - climb out of a cab, arguing. The…
Karel Kachyna spends one night in socialist purgatory in order to understand all the facets of people's fears of the future and the inevitable, to reveal vices that existed before the Day of Judgment, and to get the main characters ready for a possible descent into actual hell. But while we are fascinated by how a person almost transforms into an animal out of a sense of hopelessness, hundreds of greedy "ears" in the best traditions of auditory voyeurism are also fascinated by this.
Kachyna's manipulation of Jirina Bohdalová and Radoslav Brzobohaty's characters' emotions is cruel and deceitful. They remember the past evening's flashbacks as they are walking around in the dark, reminding the double meaning of each careless word.…
Disturbing imagery complement this important neo-noir contribution from Czechoslovakia, where a sense of increasing paranoia intensifies the feeling of tension throughout. Ucho is a powerful masterpiece that was banned for almost two decades given its direct criticism to the Communist regime; the thematic material, political and marital, are still present in the rotten reality of today.
It is important to note that the film is miraculously accomplished from a technical point of view, with an extraordinary dynamism in the camera management, the lightning, the pacing and the editing, which put together form an authentic atmosphere of claustrophobic madness, resulting in a unique contribution on real-or-imagined conspiracies and significantly surpassing the psychological impact and punches of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).
For the record, Jirina Bohdalová gives away a terrific performance!
99/100
Locked out of their home after attending a VIP party with politicians and military men, a couple’s marriage splits apart at the seams after they fear their house has been bugged. Their marriage isn’t especially strong to begin with. Ludvik is a senior public servant, and his wife Anna is an alcoholic socialite. But as Ludvik becomes increasingly paranoid that his masters are about to purge him, his tensions with Anna seem set to explode. They turn on each other, calling out to “the ear” they imagine has been planted, and for their comrades to come and save them. Their desperation reveals their worst natures as they fitfully incriminate each other.
The Ear is filmed in a suitably claustrophobic manner,…
[Insert obligatory NSA joke here]
But seriously, Ucho is a shocking film, mainly for the fact that director Karel Kachyňa was not immediately brought to a dark alley and shot. Granted, the film was withheld from release for almost 20 years, but the overt critique of Communism is so blunt that it's a miracle every copy was not simply destroyed and all involved were met untimely demises. The blame for the palpable paranoia and psychological torture of state-sanctioned surveillance is laid directly at the feet of the ruling party, and Kachyňa manages to elude a feeling of anti-propaganda by not claiming communism's opposite as a savior.
Perhaps my take is incorrect, but one of the most interesting things about the…
Heightening the noirish dread in its bleak, claustrophobic ambience, Kachyña's film reflects its unequivocal and sardonic attitude in its critical intents from the outset- seems like Costa-Gavras' version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, when it's more politically emphasized. In all honesty, this film delineates itself as a chillingly intense and apt study of fear and paranoia in the face of political voyeurism- elevated by rigorous editing and brilliant performances.
Melding the Political oppression existing in Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia with the conflicts of domestic drama, "The Ear" states itself as a neurotic, cynical thriller expressing the paranoia, plight, and bitter experiences of people in a state driven by the ubiquitous and omnipotent establishment. All in all, offering such biting criticism of the communist regime, this one remains a preeminent work of Czech New Wave alongside both- The Firemen's Ball and The Joke.
This movie feels like a nightmare fueled fever dream of political and marital paranoia. It's like The Lives of Others meets Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. If that combination sounds great, it's because it is.
On criterion
A high officer and his wife are in the border of a divorce, and everything gets worse when they realized their house has been wired.
Immediately, one thing that stands out is the very nightmarish nature of the movie. It has a strong 70s Paranoia vibe, especially like one of those filmed by Frankenheimer and Pakula in terms of the way the thriller is managed, though the whole approach to the marriage seems something coming out of a Antonioni movie. The score also helps highlighting some of the psychological tension with its distorted noises. Last but not least the performances are really good, you get to sympathize and often champion for one of the parties back and forth. To be…
