Die verkaufte Braut

The opening credits begin with two quotes. The first one, short and to the point, is by Jan Neruda. The second one, long and, in Neruda's words, completely useless, comes again from the mouth of the famous fanatical smetanophile and murderer of the Czech cultural scene, Professor Zdeněk Nejedlý. Such a shock during the prelude! Fortunately, it didn't affect the rest if it. The charm of the film was preserved, and I really liked the direction by Václav Kašlík, which cannot be called anything other than action direction (the camera is almost constantly moving, the opening ten minutes are perfect, when the characters sing a duet, the camera circles them in the style of Michael Bay...), as well as the performers of all the roles. The charming Vanda Švarcová as Mařenka, the excellent Čestmír Řanda as Kecal, the principal Ladislav Pešek, the Indian Josef Kemr, even Václav Sloup as Vašek... Everybody's great. Only Jeník was a dull-looking dummy again. When it got to the halfway point, I didn't mind at all that everyone was singing on playback (because playback performed by Gabriela Beňačková is not just any playback). Four and a bit. (01.11.2013)