Something Different

During the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, much of Europe experienced a cinematic renaissance of sorts, with films being made that were directly influenced by the political, economic and social changes brought about in the years following World War II. In Italy, filmmakers like Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini ushered in a new era with neorealism addressing issues of post-war poverty, social injustice and oppression at the hands of the powerful few. Meanwhile in France, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Pierre Melville and many others experimented in new filmmaking styles that were clearly inspired by their Italian neo-realist counterparts and classic Hollywood directors, while pushing the boundaries of both technique and visual storytelling. By the early 1960s, Czechoslovakia (now separately Czech Republic and Slovakia) experienced an impressive output of radical, experimental avant-garde cinema, known as the Czech New Wave. At the head of this prolific film era were Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Milo? Forman and Věra Chytilová. After attending the prestigious Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, or FAMU, Věra Chytilová wrote and directed two short films which had a wide release throughout then-Czechoslovakia: The Ceiling (1961) and A Bagful of Fleas (1962). Following the success of those films, Chytilová released her first feature-length film, Something Different (1963), which features two separate stories of two women in two very different lives. In the one story, Chytilová follows a gymnast named Eva, portrayed by Eva Bosáková, a real three-time Olympic gymnast who won a gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. The footage of Eva is in a documentary style, highlighting the intense training and discipline required for an upcoming competition. Meanwhile, Chytilová also tells the story of a housewife named Vera (Vera Uzelacová), whose life is controlled by the boring tasks she must complete around the home while dealing with an ungrateful son and an unfaithful husband. While at first glance each woman's daily experiences are different, they are both confined by their strict, repetitious routines. Chytilová's window into everyday life was quite different from the output from her filmmaking peers and provided a new, much-needed female perspective in world cinema. Throughout her career, Věra Chytilová provided a look into the lives of women living in the Eastern Bloc and their relationships with men in both their private and professional lives, a perspective that had not been adequately explored by any other filmmaker. In the case of the character of Vera in Something Different, she seeks companionship away from her inattentive husband by engaging in an affair. But while her lover gives her the physical attention that she craves from her husband, his obsessiveness and jealousy isn't worth the price of her infidelity. For Eva, she is abused and patronized by her male instructor, while dealing with the immediate reality of her aging body reaching its limits, marking the potential end of her career as a competitive gymnast. And like real life, there isn't a neat, cinematic ending to Vera and Eva's story; their lives continue on, each day much like the day before. In the years following the release of Something Different, Chytilová wrote and directed the "At the World Cafeteria" segment in Pearls of the Deep (1965) and the influential feminist film Sedmikrásky (Daisies) (1966), her most popular and most controversial effort. Following the release of Daisies, Chytilová faced backlash from the Czechoslovakian government, and the film was immediately banned because of its depiction of wasted food, which the government cited as "the fruit of the work of our toiling farmers." While Chytilová's film was critically praised in other parts of the world, she struggled to find work within the country. By 1968 and in the midst of growing tensions as a result of the Soviet Union's invasion, Chytilová found work directing television commercials, but had to do so under a pseudonym. When she was able to return to filmmaking, Chytilová faced heavy censorship alongside her fellow Czech filmmakers and artists. When Chytilová was interviewed for the 2004 documentary Journey: Portrait of Věra Chytilová she was asked if she had any regrets about her career. Chytilová responded confidently, "I was daring enough to want to do what I wanted, even if it was a mistake." Director: Věra Chytilová Screenplay: Věra Chytilová Cinematography: Jan Curík Editing: Miroslav Hájek Music: Jirí Slitr Cast: Eva Bosáková (gymnastka Eva), Vera Uzelacová (Vera), Josef Langmiler (Josef - Verin manzel), Jirí Kodet (Jirka - Verin milenec), Milivoj Uzelac Jr. (Mylda), Miroslava Matlochová (Trenerka), Lubos Ogoun (baletní mistr - Evin trener), Vladimir Bosak (dr. Bosák - Evin manzel), Dagmar Cejnkova (Dada - Verina pritelkyne), Jirí Cegnek (Dadin manzel), Oldrich Cervinka (Novinár) and Rudolf Kyznar (Klavírista). B&W-85m References: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/nyregion/vera-chytilova-dies-at-85-made-daring-czech-films.html http://www.tresbohemes.com/2015/10/czech-new-wave-cinema-and-vera-chytilova/ https://hyperallergic.com/405838/a-czech-filmmaker-who-portrayed-eastern-bloc-life-through-womens-eyes/ http://sensesofcinema.com/2018/cteq/something-different-vera-chytilova-1963/ By Jill Blake