Fruit of Paradise

Fruit of Paradise

classified 12A S

part of Gluttony, Decadence and Resistance

Film

Please note: This was screened in July 2019

Director
Vera Chytilová
Cast
Jitka Nováková, Karel Novak, Jan Schmid
Details
99 mins, & Subtitled, 1970, Czechoslovakia | Belgium
Primary language
Czech

Take a bittersweet bite from the tree of transgression. Made at the height of the Czech New Wave cinema, Vera Chytilová's follow up to Daisies is a direct and subversive response to the political struggle in the former Czechoslovakia.

Using one of the most well-known and moralising stories of all time as her departure point, Chytilová takes an avant-garde axe to the tale of Adam and Eve, turning it into an allegory of the invasion of Prague by Soviet forces under the Warsaw pact in 1968. Her experimental approach resonates with the emerging anti-establishment aesthetics of the time and her unpredictable band of characters afford the film with an appropriately socially and politically charged sting at every turn.

Subsequently banned from filmmaking until 1975, this is one of Chytilová's (co-written and with Costume Design by Ester Krumbachová) most acerbic and entertaining tales of social decay.


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