Reviews

Slow in a good way, of course, because it's all about suspense. People start coming back from the dead - some are better remembered than others, some are more aware of what's going on, some just want to start again. This makes the narrative layered, the characters' stories only slowly become clear, the whole situation gradually starts to make sense. There's no hurry, plenty of atmosphere, and a lot is left to the imagination (or at least not explained properly, which I suppose amounts to the same). Family drama overlaps with the fantasy element, so one minute it's really sad and moving, the next weird or horrifying, and all wrapped up in a melancholy soundtrack and lovely mountain scenery. Unsettling, sometimes baffling, but strangely addictive viewing.

Oldrich Lipsky made comedies the way comedies should be made - by a manic genius with a unique and recognisable but still quirky and unpredictable imagination, a director's eye for visual humour and bizarre images, a writer's love of language and of plot twists that are either so unlikely or so obvious that either way you'd never expect them. Clever and unashamedly silly, with a great feeling for both surrealism and slapstick, colourful and in spite of everything very slick, with acting and dialogue deadpan and hilariously serious one minute, totally over the top the next. Very Czech, or rather very Czechoslovakian since he made his films between the 60s and the 80s in that now long gone totalitarian police state, but generally set in another time, even when set (as in this case) in the same place. This isn't even his best film, but it's well worth tracking down.