Brilliant and touching

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It is very confusing! This movie was finished in 1970. To put 1990 it is so confusing. I thought it was another movie when looking for it just because of that date.

Reading up about Czech New Wave titles (CNW),I was shocked to find out about a CNW movie that was filmed in 1970,but banned from being seen by the Soviet Union until 1989!,which led to me deciding that it was time to listen in on the movie.The plot:Returning home after partying with their fellow comrades,husband and wife Ludvík and Anna notice that their house has been broken into.Rushing in, Ludvík & Anna find that their spare keys have been taken,and that their house is the only one on the street without power.Looking outside their window,Anna and Ludvík notice mysterious men in long coats standing in the shadows,and a postal van parked nearby.Trying to rise to the top in the Communist Pary,Anna and Ludvík begin to fear that the strangers outside are party members secretly listening in.View on the film:Skipping over the allegorical lines usually taken (understandably) by Cold War Czech movies,the screenplay by co-writer/(along with Jan Procházka & Ladislav Winkelhöfer) strikes the occupying Soviet's with a merciless fury.Taking place over one night,the writers make the party that the couple attend one that is filled with Film Noir slime balls,who have their eyes locked on finding any flaws which can keep a competitor in their place.Coming back from the party,the writers soak Anna and Ludvik slippery in paranoia (where even Stalin gets named!) ,by making their fears over being spied on open up the raw wounds that have covered their marriage over the years.Shooting down the sparks from the party,director Kachyna & cinematographer Josef Illík scan the guests with ultra-stylish Film Noir first person tracking shots,which along with exposing the lies falling from the fellow Party members,also allows the viewer to get an earful of Ludvik's ruthless views on his fellow Communist Party members.Backed by an icy score from Svatopluk Havelka, Kachyna gives Ludvik & Anna's house a rustic CNW naturalism,where dusty floors and mouldy walls match the decay of their inhibitions. Closing the couple off in the house, Kachyna digs them in with a rich Film Noir atmosphere,thanks to elegant panning shots and eye-catching flickers from candle lights cast a mood of impending dread over the house.Walking round the house with busted nerves, Jiřina Bohdalová, (who the real Soviet/Czech secret police the StB tried to blackmail)gives an intense performance as Anna,who Bohdalová paints with a light shade of love for Ludvik,with an overwhelming agony over trying to stop Ludvik sinking into the Film Noir darkness.Trying to charm everyone at the party, Radoslav Brzobohatý gives an excellent performance as Ludvik,whose Film Noir loner loyalty over the Party Brzobohatý tears up with a stern brutality,as Ludvik discovers the hidden ear of his Party.

A soviet psychological thriller from Hungary. A couple arrive back from a government party to find that someone has been in their house and start to believe that they may be next on the disappearance list. Their neighbour, his boss, and a minister in the government has recently been 'taken care' of and they start to think that they may be next. The electricity and phone lines are down and they sneak around their home looking for hidden bugs.However this isn't just a political conspiracy thriller. It is the couple's 10th wedding anniversary and the woman is very drunk and slightly hysterical. Reminiscent of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', living under this regime has clearly taken a large toll on their relationship. Watching the breakdown unfold can make for uncomfortable viewing as you sympathise with his attempts to calm her down as she subjects him to torrents of verbal abuse, while he is mostly powerless to stop her, paranoid that she may something "The Ear" will pick up.I didn't follow exactly what the state may have against him. It seemed to be about some possible favours that he may have been able to secure to promote a building firm that he owned rather than anything hugely controversial. However this may have been the point and the real story is about the effect on the personal lives of those wrapped up in a surveillance society where corruption is rife. Their relationship was totally believable and when it seemed that the regime might have just got the better of them their desperate need for each other was thoroughly convincing. (8/10)

I've seen this a couple of days ago in a tribute to Karel Kachyna who died recently. It is simply amazing. A well connected party/government (same thing) aparatchik and wife get driven back to their villa from a state reception to find their keys missing, house unlocked, without electricity, working telephone. They are being snippy with each other to start with, but when the man starts getting a little paranoid about the situation and starts getting little flashbacks from the reception (his immediate boss - a minister - and several colleagues are not present there, some ppl express mild suprise he is there himself, he is obviously not privy to certain hush-hush information, their chaffeur is missing and the place is full of "cliftons" i.e. secret police (get me a salmon, that's the red thing:)) they both really deteriorate into panic, accusssations, dragging long-forgotten things into open... The point is they know they are being listened to, but their safe haven are the toilets, the bathroom and the kitchen where the bugging devices are not ordinarily placed... but not for long I cannot imagine how did Mr. K imagine this thing would be released ever. It's a miracle it only got shelved and can remind us nowadays how bad it really was...It is one of the most thruthfull portrayals of uncertanities of love and life back then