Prague on Page & Screen - Prague and Czech Republic - page 637

» City Sister Silver (Jáchym Topol, 1994) Translator Alex Zucker modestly de-
scribes this rambling, words-on-speed novel as 'the story of a young man trying
to find his way in the messy landscape of post-communist Czechoslovakia'.
Hollywood Comes to Prague
In addition to Czech films, the Czech Republic has managed to position itself as a
lower-cost production centre for Hollywood films. Part of the pitch has been the ex-
cellent production facilities at the Barrandov studios, south of the centre in Smíchov.
The effort has paid off and dozens of big-budget films, including the first instalment
of Tom Cruise's epic Mission Impossible (1996), have been filmed here.
BEST NEW-WAVE FILMS
Many of the great Czech films from the 1960s are available on DVD or through
download services such as Netflix. Some of the best:
» Closely Watched Trains (1966) Jiří Menzel's adaptation of Bohumil Hrabal's
comic WWII classic set in a small railway town won an Oscar in 1967 and put
the Czech New Wave on the international radar. Watch for the scene where
young Miloš gently broaches the subject of premature ejaculation with an older
woman while she lovingly strokes the neck of a goose.
» Loves of a Blonde (1965) Miloš Forman's poignant love story between a
naïve girl from a small factory town and her more sophisticated Prague beau.
Arguably Forman's finest film, effortlessly capturing both the innocence and the
hopelessness of those grey days of the mid-1960s.
» Black Peter (1963) On its debut, this early Forman effort wowed New York
critics with its cinematic illusions to the French New Wave and its slow but mes-
merising teenage-boy-comes-of-age storyline.