Viewings: August 2025

Karel Kachyňa's The Ear was the only discovery I liked enough to even bother with a dedicated blog post. One of the few films dubbed as new wave which didn't bombard me with pseudo intellectual diarrhoea. The Ear is an accessible and thought provoking film, with some alarming parallels to our current timeline. Well worth checking out.

 

Film:

The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) 

The Long Hot Summer (Martin Ritt, 1958)

Beyond the Time Barrier (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1960)

Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962)

Lunch Hour (James Hill, 1962)*

Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)

The Ear (Karel Kachyňa, 1970)* 

Smile Before Death (Silvio Amadio, 1972)*

The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive (Francesco Mazzei, 1972)*

The Secret of Seagull Island (Nestore Ungaro, 1982)*

Cobra (George P. Cosmatos, 1986)

Enemy Territory (Peter Manoogian, 1987)*

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Tony Randel, 1988)

Her Vengeance (Ngai Choi Lam, 1988)*

Def by Temptation (James Bond III, 1990)*

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)

Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025)*

Red Sonja (M.J. Bassett, 2025)*

Superman (James Gunn, 2025)*

 

Television:

Mastermind - Episodes 4-6 (Bill Wright, 2025 / 2026)* 

*First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

• The god Leviathan, the Labyrinth, Dr. Channard cenobite, Pinhead's origin and Julia's metamorphosis from the wicked stepmother to the evil queen; this is how you creatively expand upon a classic film and deliver one of the best horror sequels ever. Feeling like a right mug not including it in my GOAT Brit flicks list.
• Did not expect the depth and drama exploring the price for revenge in Cat. III thriller Her Vengeance. There's still enough to appease the exploitation crowd, however, particularly an '80s action movie montage and a brutally violent showdown for a finale.
• Smile Before Death is a very sleazy giallo with an insufferable theme that plays ad nauseam. Effectively guaranteeing I'll never bother with it again.
• Sticking with giallo: The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive is an acceptable murder mystery surrounding the death of a randy priest. Hilariously, the detective investigating the case winds up proposing to one of the prime suspects.
• Enemy Territory is a curious entry from the legendary B-movie company Empire International Pictures. It's neither a horror, sci-fi or a fantasy movie, but an urban thriller set in an apartment building that's very much inspired by Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and The Warriors (1979). It's nowhere near as good as those, however, but it does have a great over-the-top performance by Tony Todd as The Count, the psychotic leader of a gang called The Vampires.
• James Gunn once again transplants his tried and tested formula of outsiders finding a surrogate family in another comic book movie. Worked with unfamiliar / forgotten characters like Star-Lord or Polka-Dot Man, but surprisingly not with his Superman outing. Gunn's irreverent humour also feels very dated and ill suited for such a wholesome character like the Man of Steel, especially after years of quips being run into the ground from similar movies. However, the biggest issue is the lack of time given for the viewer to process everything, and therefore it's one CGI set-piece to the next. I gave it three stars on Letterboxd; too generous, in hindsight. 
• There's a half decent crime thriller lurking about somewhere in Ari Aster's latest overlong picture. Having to wade through over an hour's worth of cringe, satirising the insanity of 2020, is the reason why I'll most likely never bother with Eddington again.

And finally: R.I.P. Terence Stamp and Ray Brooks!

The Ear of Living Dangerously

The Ear (Karel Kachyňa, 1970)

With recent changes in online safety laws, I was in the mood for some Kafka-esque style thriller centred around authoritarianism working for the so-called greater good. Enter Karel Kachyňa's previously banned The Ear (AKA Ucho, 1970) — a film that tends to be lumped in as part of the Czech New Wave by various film critics and the like. Please believe the term new wave is the equivalent of kryptonite to your host. Pretentious film makers in this field are always justly worthy of mockery and ridicule, but I'll give them their fair dues if they deliver the goods. Life is far too precious to waste on some overrated, avant-garde spergfest like Věra Chytilová's Daisies (1966), a film also banned by the Czechoslovakian Communist Party (largely because of it being nonsensical shite rather than glorifying the rot of Capitalism, in my humble opinion) and subsequently worshipped today by pseudo-intellectual film snobs and septum-pierced hipsterellas. Then again, I am a fan of Jaromil Jireš's excellent fantasy horror Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), another film in the Czech New Wave canon. Fortunately, the gamble paid off, as The Ear is another winner for your host.

Ludvík (Radoslav Brzobohatý) is a deputy minister returning home from a political shindig with his drunken wife Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová). Once they're dropped off outside their house, things don't seem right. Ludvík notices a parked car in the distance that appears suspicious. To make matters worse, Anna has lost the keys to the front door. Locked out, Ludvík attempts to sneak back in via the rear of the house. Once inside, there is no electrical power. Ludvík dismisses it as a power cut in the local area. However, Anna notices their neighbours opposite have all the their lights on. And thus, paranoia and anxiety worm their way for the couple. 

The premise paves the way for a compelling film revealing all the resentment in Ludvík and Anna's marriage, along with them living under a totalitarian regime where privacy is but a rare luxury. Even in their own home, there is no realistic sanctuary for them, as the couple believe their home is bugged; Anna mockingly calling whoever might be listening to her conversations as "The Ear". In particular scene, it's implied that the couple have sex in the kitchen as their bedroom is more than likely bugged. Much like Ludvík, the viewer is made to piece the puzzle together in the reason for their sinister predicament.

Via a series of flashbacks set at the aforementioned party, we learn of possible details that account for  Ludvík and Anna's safety being in jeopardy. Ludvík's peers were all absent from the ministerial soiree and the husband suspects he might be in midsts of a purge. In the case of Ludvík's boss, it might have been because he was Jewish and therefore subsequently "summoned" elsewhere off screen. There's a striking contrast between these flashback scenes and rest of the film where the couple are skulking about their home in the dark. One is an ultra bright and dreamlike setting, where drunken housewives wear newspaper hats, and visiting Russian officials, in military regalia, are comically leaping about like frogs; the other, is the two fearful protagonists, illuminating their home with old-fashioned candelabras, looking like they're transplanted into a gothic Italian horror. The quick cut editing between the two juxtaposed scenarios is perhaps the reason for its new wave label. It's jarring, initially, but achieves the objective of cluing in on the events leading up to the surmounting paranoia and dread throughout the progress of the film. 

Despite the surmounting levels of fear in the film, there are some unexpectedly amusing lines peppered here and there. One particular scene at the aforementioned party has Ludvík's comrade telling him that the catering staff are compromised, "See how he serves the food? None of them is a trained waiter, they're all spies!" Snarkily demanding, "Give me a bit of salmon. It's that red stuff  over there."

It isn't long until men in suits are wondering around outside the couple's property. A fearful Ludvík attempts to flush an important ministerial report down the toilet; eventually resorting to burning it. Anna wanting to open a window from the smoke, but warned not to by Ludvík, so not to alert the men outside their property. This is a sobering moment for her. Witnessing one of the men outside taking a vegetable from their garden, Anna comments, "They're stealing our radishes. At least he left the cabbage." A few seconds of jest whilst her world comes crashing in on her.

Amidst all the unfolding chaos, Kachyňa focuses heavily on his protagonist's estranged marriage and provides some heavy insight into both of these characters. It's the reason why The Ear is often likened to Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? albeit with the paranoia of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974). Given the latter, it's somewhat likely The Ear might have had some influence upon on the American director's surveillance thriller.

Karel Kachyňa was already a veteran film maker when he co-wrote and directed The Ear. This might explain his brazen criticism of his government without any kind of fear of reprisal. Surprisingly, the film even received a theatrical release in the former home nation of Czechoslovakia; albeit, a very short lived one, as it was quickly pulled and banned by the ruling Communist Party. It would take twenty years and the Iron Curtain to be drawn back for for the film to ever resurface again. The Ear was screened at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and rediscovered once more. Fast forward to today, and its chilling commentary appears to be just as relevant now as it did back then. Last and not least, The Ear serves as a very early example of paranoid-infused political thrillers which were popular in '70s cinema.

Count the The Ear as a rare breed of film that is worthy of admiration by film lovers with an appreciation for paranoid thrillers, as well as poncey chin-strokers who frequent art-house cinemas.

The Ear is available on Blu-ray via Second Run as well as an upload on YouTube.