Forman, Majidi, and Kenka Bancho

In the interim here, I've watched:

Milos Forman's The Firemen's Ball

Another Czech comedy, rife with sarcasm and satire. This one has a more political sense to the hidden meanings and the ending is a little more comic than tragic as opposed to his other film, Loves of a Blonde. I'd recommend Loves first, but if you want some colour and less of a "now I feel kinda bad for laughing" feeling at the end, go with this one. Still, my favorite Czech comedy so far has been Closely Watched Trains. The film focuses on a ball put on by the inept local fire department, and was seen as many as a parody of the Soviet government in Czechoslovakia.

Majid Majidi's The Colour of Paradise

Ebert said of this film, "Because they do not condescend to young audiences, Majidi's films of course are absorbing for adults as well, and there is a lesson here: Any family film not good enough for grownups is certainly not good enough for children." I couldn't agree more. This film had me on the brink of tears and could certainly work to spring some debates about the search for god. The film is moving and powerful. It centres on a blind boy who wants to see God and his father who wishes God had never given him such a difficult child to raise.

And a brief note on things beyond film:

I recently acquired a copy of Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble and it's fantastically addictive. I'll likely comment on it when I finish it, which won't take long as it's a short game. The biggest thing you need to know is that they captured the spirit of "badass delinquents" perfectly. And I don't just mean the writing. The game let's you be a delinquent within its own gameplay. Of course, the obvious goal is to be the biggest badass, but you don't have to do any of that. You could spend the game just hanging out with your friends and attending the school events (which you can also skip), or you could run around like an idiot and do nothing but stare down innocent civilians, or you could just stand in one spot for all seven days (there's a time limit) and be such a badass that you don't even bother with this stupid game! Seriously, though, there's a basic plot and framework there, but you can do as much or as little of it as you damn well want. And when the whole point of it is being a badass punk, that's the way it should be, goddammit!

Well, it's off to class again. Today we're watching Divided we fall by Jan Hrebejk.