Saw "Autumn Spring", a Czech movie in World Movie channel.Remarkable film on
how
one can cheerfully age without any care.The film showcases the methods of an
old
man to fill his twilight years with so much of fun that his life would be an
envy for even Dorian Gray who defied death.The review of the film is attached
for your appreciation.
Fanda, the ageing hero of Vladimir Michalek's movie, doesn't have it easy. His
wife Emilie spends her days collecting and critiquing newspaper obituaries and
counting the saved-up Crowns for their funerals. His son wouldn't mind if he
moved into a home for aged so that the son can occupy the fathers house, and
his
grand kids are drawing pictures of gravestones with his name on it. There's not
much left to look forward to, they all keep reminding him.
But Fanda, played superbly by Vlastimil Brodsky, refuses to go quietly into
that
dark night. Instead of tending to graves, he plays cheerful pranks on the
world.
Together with his old actor friend Eda (Stanislav Zindulka), he impersonates
wealthy opera stars from abroad and subway inspectors to hustle fancy French
meals and pecks on the cheek from pretty girls. When a particularly gutsy prank
goes wrong, Fanda needs to find a lot of money fast -- or dip into the money
Emilie set aside for their funerals.
Brodsky's performance as the old fool Fanda is graceful and sympathetic, and
laced with enough sadness to give his flights into fancy a morbid edge. His
levity is bought at a terrible price, and whenever the soundtrack gets too
schmaltzy, Brodsky's terminal good humor grounds the movie in our shared fate.
Shortly after "Autumn Spring" was completed, the seasoned Czech actor ("Jacob
the Liar," "Closely Watched Trains") fell ill and committed suicide.
"Autumn Spring" is the kind of warm, uplifting champion-the-underdog film that
studios now try to produce at any cost, a subgenre of world cinema that has
been
reduced to a formula. Many of these films fail miserably when the sentiment is
obviously false.
"Autumn Spring" is the wonderful real deal.
