Capricious Summer

Capricious Summer

1968 · 74 min · CS · NR · 6.7 (25 votes)
Dir. Jiří Menzel · Starring Rudolf Hrušínský, Míla Myslíková, Vlastimil Brodský, František Řehák, Jana Preissová, Jiří Menzel · Music Jiří Šust
ComedyRomance

Middle-aged Antonin and his friends, the major, now retired, and the canon, are in the river, swimming and philosophizing. Then it starts to rain. It just seems to be that sort of summer. Antonin runs the swimming bath with his portly wife Katherine... A man appears with his horse-drawn caravan. He lays a striped pole across the river and walks over. With a handstand and a magic trick, Ernie the Conjuror invites everyone to that evening's performance... Ernie is a tightrope walker of only modest skill, but with a slim and beautiful assistant, Anna. Antonin speaks to her. The two spend the night in the change room by the river, Antonin massaging her feet all night long. Katherine decides to move into the caravan with Ernie. But now the major and even the canon sense Anna's attractiveness...

VIBE

A languid, sun-drenched summer unfolds with a touch of the surreal. It's a film that drifts on a tide of quiet desires and unexpected enchantments, where reality blurs with a gentle, almost melancholic magic.

whimsicalmelancholicdreamysurrealslow-burnczech new wavearthousemagical realisminfidelitymidlife crisisescapismmagic realism
▶ Stream on Criterion Channel
adulteryhusband wife relationshipbased on novel or bookmagiccircusmilitary officerbathwinesummeryoung womanmiddle ages (476-1453)tightropeczech new wave
MORE LIKE THIS — multi-vector + why, diversified