User Reviews

A wonderful Czech classic that can be seen over and over! In my opinion, this is a film that is best understood if you are a native Czech, appreciate Czech humor and character, and like Bohumil Hrabal's "tender barbarian" style of writing. It is not so much a movie about a local brewery director, his wife and their life in the brewery that strives to be an utterly funny comedy, as it is a lovely view of Hrabal's parents, his unique uncle Pepin, and the times of "cutting it short", that brings a smile to your face and keeps it there for the duration of the film. I can understand that Postriziny can be very hard for non-Czech viewers to appreciate.

The best movie of Czech genius Jiri Menzel (after the Oscar-winning 'Ostre sledované vlaky' of course). Too bad that Bohumil Hrabal, the writer of Menzel's best movies is practically unknown for the "Western" audience, they apparently ignore these gems from behind the former "iron curtain". Menzel is one of those great Czech New Wave directors (along Milos Forman, who managed to get into the spotlight by moving to the USA) who established this very special Czech style of movie-making: sensitive while humorous, joyful while tragic, with very intimate and thought-provoking stories. I just love the style of Menzel who can put this unreal, incredibly funny character of uncle Pepin to the screen so well that it actually works better than in the novels of Hrabal. Don't miss it.

I agree with most of the comments above. This movie is an absolute gem. The CZ communist regime, however harsh and unfriendly towards many artists - including Hrabal and Menzel, was quite supportive to the film industry and the film directors had state grants for their work and advisory boards consisting of educated people evaluating every new movie to be made. Also there was no pressure to make the movies commercially successful as you can see now, and that is how communists actually helped to create the Czech Wave of great movies in 60's and later....I just read an interview with Menzel where he talks of this and compares the situation of before 1989 and now....Hrabal certainly was a genius, I remember that even Kundera said that Hrabal was just a talent by god that he was above all Czech writers of his time....cant agree that he is not known in western Europe, I met some people in France who approached me in a street when they saw that I am reading his novel and started to talk of their love for Hrabal. Also some Canadians whom I know here in London mentioned this movie to me several times by themselves, they just could not remember the name, only the characters :))....Cant wait to see the "English King" in the movies, Menzel says that it took him over a year to work on the screenplay and seems to be aware of the magnitude of the work....unfortunately now when Hrabal is dead he cant assist Menzel with the work as he did before...well, we'll see...

My god, is this film ever Czech Czech Czech. It's charming, warm-hearted, humble, sensual, and occasionally brutal. Like so many other Czech films, here we see humans being human, and their ridiculousness is viewed with affection and delight.

As Fellini's "Amacord" captured the Italy of the director's childhood, Menzel's "Postriziny" reminisces about life at a rural Czech brewery in the 1920s. But Menzel's film drifts through daily life with only the most minor of events, and the plot, such as it is, is guided by nothing of consequence at all. This film floats by so lightly that, in comparison, it makes "Amacord" seem as epic as a Hollywood superhero blockbuster.

The wife is lovely. The husband is loving and dutiful. The brother is an annoying clown, but everyone enjoys him. Nothing terribly bad happens.

The film is kind of a marvel of understatement, or disengagement. One can only wonder why everything feels so inconsequential. Was it fear of the censors? Or Menzel's desire to be always charming, at any cost? Or, is Menzel radically humble, bordering on being humble-to-a-fault? Or, is the average movie viewer simply unprepared to take on a film in which the stakes are so low?

The Czech movie industry is famous for its masterpieces. And when they meet a genius as Hrabal the outcome is excellent. The story is about a country-side brewery somewhere in Czech republic, at the beginning of the 20th century (maybe right after WWI). We get a very good picture of the nature of czech people influenced by the rigurous Germans (represented by the manager of the brewery) and the cheerful slavic nature of men who like good food and lots of beer. We get also a glimpse of the beauty of the Czech women in the person of the wife of the manager. The movie shows also very well the change of the society in those times. At the beginning everything is happening slowly, everybody is calm, and gradually things quicken up, distances shorten and the world is changing radically.

If you like american comedy, please don't watch this movie. You won't understand it. But if you like to see a good European movie, you should not miss this.

And not only for Easterners. Of course, it is clearly not the cheap and easy humour you can face in that kind of slapstick silly comedies from Hollywood nowadays.

As many times in the tandem Hrabal/Menzel, the film exudes sense of humour, "joie de vivre" and natural acting. Characters are full of charm, flesh and blood, and life... yes, Central European life after WWI (some visits to the area are still a good help in order to take better understanding... but be careful because later the understanding becomes LOVE forever, I can assure)

Just waiting the next one by Menzel, based on another classic by Bohumil Hrabal: I served the King of England.

Personal note: I have been in love with Maryska (literary homage by Hrabal to his mother)since the blessed day I read the first lines in the book... some years ago.

To me, this is the best movie ever. I could watch it over and over again for a thousand times! The scene, the characters, the dialogues, the situation, the colors, the feeling! Ah, that sweet nostalgia! And the whole movie mixed with an elegant little comedy. This film is truly the one to give you joy and courage through life. I guess you need to be able to receive the feeling that just comes from this movie. Anyone who has seen a peaceful little Middle-European town would appreciate this movie. Anyone who hasn't can do it with this film. Go out and get it!

A favorite that is so comforting. Pleasing in every way. The film displays a lush world and conveys an atmosphere of nostalgia. Here is a balance of serenity, humor, and gravity that is nuanced and intelligent. Czechs and those who love Czech films and literature will of course cherish this film, but anyone with a heart and an eye for beauty will appreciate it too.

If only this film were easier to get outside of Europe. I first saw this on Russian television years ago, and currently watch it almost every day on the Internet. My wish is to finally own it in some form - video, DVD - it doesn't matter. Watching this makes a bad day better, and is a simple way to to make anytime special, like a cup of tea or a great book.

Speaking of books, I cannot wait to read the book this film is based on. Thanks to all others who have reviewed it.

The film also has a way of making one crave good food and beer!

This is the only film that makes me salivate. Yes, for a glass of Czech beer, a plate of pork and the beautiful Magda Vášáryová. It's a fond look at the lives of writer Bohumil Hrabal's parents in pre-war Czechoslovakia — father a put-upon brewery manager, mother sensual and flirtatious — and his eccentric, Švejk-like Uncle Pepin, who arrives uninvited and doesn't leave.

There's a lot of smiling and larking about, in and around the small-town brewery that was their home, and even those suffering injuries as a result seem to laugh at them. Utopian and nostalgic maybe, but why not? Nowadays we'd call it "feelgood". And that horse pissing — unscripted, surely (!) but the actors cope and director Jiří Menzel leaves it in to add to the mayhem.

I read the book years ago, but didn't realise until much later that Menzel had filmed it: what joy! Hrabal's breathless prose style is probably impossible to capture on screen, but the essence of the short story is not. In Menzel's loving hands the result is such a beautiful film, tender, whimsical, joyful, sensual, life-enhancing. I'd say that Postřižiny is definitely on a par with his better-known Ostře Sledované Vlaky (Closely Observed Trains), perhaps even superior as it benefits from more modern production quality, and colour. Such a shame it is not better known in the west — definitely our loss! But the Czech DVD has fairly good English subtitles for those unfortunates like myself who cannot speak the language, so now there is no excuse for not seeking out this gem.

Incidentally, Hrabal grew up in the brewery at Nymburk, east of Prague, but the film was actually shot at the Dalešice brewery further south in Moravia. Was the chimney there as tall, I wonder...?

I love Menzel movies and this one is my favorite of all of them. Even it's into my ten favorite movies of all time, like The Godfather, Blade Runner, The man who shot Liberty Valance, Amarcord or La vida en un hilo. It's poetical, romantic, erotic and funny. A kind of humor that moves from intelligent talk to the purely slapstick, but always in a universal way, that everybody can appreciate and enjoy.It's a movie that tries to make you feel how pretty are love and life, and if you let your senses and soul go into the story, when the movie finishes you can feel yourself better than at the beginning. Enjoy this movie so you'll enjoy life...and beer.

This film is a comedy about how the writer Hrabal was born. The movie takes

place in a small town where Hrabal's father is in charge of a brewery.

The blessing and at the same time the bane of his life is his wonderful wife.

Blessing, because she is not only beautiful but she is resourceful and

intelligent and lively, bane all other man in the little town man would like to get

to know her better. The story is a kind of nostalgia, but is still

amusing tale, with not much tension and thriller, but still worth to watch…

(If you have a good copy of it...)

At a time – I think – in the eighties the film won a some prize in a Film Festival, in Europe

The western world paid its dues to Jiri Menzel with Closely Watched Trains, Czechoslovak cinema enjoyed its time in the spotlight for about five years, then as the Soviet tanks moved in on Prague and the UN sat and watched in carefully outraged anticipation, Milos Forman and a bunch of people left for greener pastures, those who stayed behind to make movies devised new ways to sidestep and confuse the Soviet mechanism, and everyone else went home to find the next New Wave/foreign national school of cinema to praise in dumbfounded amazement that movies were actually made outside of LA, Rome, and Paris. Ironically enough, the legendary Filmove Studio Barrandov that lent considerable resources at the hands of the Czech New Wave are now hiring out to major Hollywood productions.

My girlfriend is half-Czech which means I'm very lucky to get an insider's view of that culture. It's also funny because she doesn't know the famous Oscar material, Closely Watched Trains or Firemen's Ball or The Shop on Main Street, but she was showing me the other day a VHS of a 1931 comedy that is apparently a family favourite. I perfectly understand that because I'm Greek and Theo Angelopoulos is only discussed/ridiculed as "artsy" for his pretentiously long shot by people who haven't sat through one of his movies - he is the prestige cinema we export and send to Cannes every so many years but it's not what we watch as a peoples. Anyway, I wouldn't have seen this otherwise and I've seen no one mention it.

This is one of those movies the Criterion establishment has not managed to salvage for a world audience yet remains a household national classic in its home country. And it's not one of those movies that don't translate well because, like Closely Watched Trains or most Czech New Wave films for that matter, the humour is mostly physical and visual in the manner of silent cinema, the characters are drawn in identifiable ways because we may need cultural context to understand a ronin or a geisha but a neglectful boss is a neglectful boss in any language, although this is what Italians did in their spaghettis and the Czech always refined/elevated their characters above simple stereotype. Thus the fake priest in Fararuv Konec does the small village better spiritual service than the real ones and the leering doctor in this one is painted in gentlemanly colors. It's the comedy of the running gag and the pratfall so that the viewer is not even required to understand/decipher the political allegory behind it to at least enjoy it. Indeed a running gag in the film is the mention of silent comedian Lupino Lane and the owners of the brewery where the film takes place complain, when one of their meetings is turned into chaos and mockery, that this is not a Charlie Chaplin movie.

This is a movie where the brewery manager's earnest attempts at professionalism and seriousness are sidetracked by a mocking universe where a motorcycle will never start and where his annoying, loud-voiced, brother destroys his domestical peace, at some degree Bohumil Hrabal takes a jab at the unbearable lightness of being, or as the wife says about her husband who moves around in a constant scowl, with slumped shoulders, "he has the muscles of a gladiator but he feels like a skinned rabbit". But this is also a movie about the wife, the beautiful radiant woman whom everyone at the small village oogles at and yet who glides around life like a breeze, allowing nothing to cling to her, nothing to molest that purity of life and character, and as a testament to the kind of optimist lifeaffirming film Jiri Menzel is doing, that purity is never put to a test, is never groped at or corrupted by outside circumstances. The beauty of this comes with a question; would the husband be the grouch he is if his wife wasn't as breezy as she is? Or better yet, if a person in a relationship takes the lightness for herself, does that mean the other must by necessity shoulder the unbearableness of that lightness? The end is a happy one, like the silent comedians reserved for their audience. By the same token, this is cinema that addresses a broad audience but does so in a simple refined manner. Good stuff.

It's classical comedy - and if you like firemen, beer, stryc Pepin, well-known czech humor and Hrabal's "Pabitele", you must saw it. Good knowledge of Czech language is important! And don't forget to buy "medvidka myvala". :)

I saw the movie in the original Czech language. I did make it through, though I have to say it was an effort. If you enjoyed The New World by Terrence Malick you will probably enjoy this movie, though you might find it fast paced. If you normally enjoy American cinema, this movie will seem totally senseless. If you're a man, the pretty Magda Vasaryova might carry the movie for you. If you are a woman (I am), this is pure waste of time. I would have liked to find something positive to say about this movie, but other than the visuals, which were nice, and the glimpse into small town life a century ago, this film really has nothing to recommend itself. My Czech friends gave me this movie since they obviously had an extremely high opinion of it. I did watch it since I felt I owed them that much, but I honestly can't say I found the movie funny or entertaining. It was just extremely long without anything going on. It was the first movie I ever saw that needed a narrator throughout. I have only seen this before in documentaries and found it rather annoying. I think it was supposed to make the movie "funny". I felt like the movie was a very bad joke, and the joke was on the viewer, for waisting their time watching this.

A film about a local brewery director, his wife and their life in the brewery. I didn't really like anything about this film, except for the fact that it has to do with beer (that was the reason I watched it after all) and that you see a lot of home-made sausages in several scenes (accompanying the beer). It is branded as a comedy but I didn't find more than 2-3 scenes mildly amusing.

Maybe it could only get as far as that in 1980 communist Czechoslovakia...

It happened that I had seen this film in cinema about 20 years ago. Now I got this title again in a bundle of three Menzel films, not knowing that because I had forgotten it completely, so weak the content: unmotivated smiling, mating: very funny?! After the first few scenes I switched off the player, because I detest cruelty. It is not even for beer drinkers, the best beers nowadays made out of Plzen, even out of Czechia.