CibbuanoI Served the King of England
December 24th 2007 07:53
The latest movie from Jiri Menzel is based on a novel by notable Czech writer, Bohumil Hrabel, but it's obvious that Menzel put a large slice of his own vision into the movie. It's about a mousey little waiter who dreams about becoming a millionaire one day, mesmerized by the rich men he waits on.
He hears things he's not supposed to hear, and he learns how to be rich, tasting the crumbs from their tables, smelling their wine, visually ravaging their women.
I Served the King of England is highly satirical, biting into the decadence of pre-war Europe, when rich men were more than emperors, able to live to the most hedonistic excesses, like the Romans before them.
Menzel shows us the ugliness of this thin crust of the population... making deals while drinking with their boys club, driven to further reaches of depravity... yes, the director shows us how ugly it is, but the scenes he paints with the camera are beautiful and softly compelling.
Slow pans over tables crammed with luxurious food, glass after glass of wine, pint after pint of frothy beer. And then the women.
Oh, this is a movie that uses women like models of the Renaissance. Nude and between nude, the procession of women in this film is beautiful to behold... Menzel picked women with natural bodies, fleshy and voluptuous, with imperfect smiles and asymmetrical bodies, but he lights them like a painting in the Louvre.
It's a fantastic movie... over the stunning camerawork and the soft musical score, the main character, Dite, stumbled and twirls like Chaplin or the Marx brothers. A terrific combination of satire and slapstick, keeping us entertained for the length of the movie.
And you'll have to - the movie turns dark, though the slapstick remains... we keep laughing, but get increasingly uncomfortable with the hideousness of human hatred and greed.
I Served the King of England is commencing its run at the Chauvel Cinema, and I recommend that you watch it... it came during the Czech Film Festival, but you've got a great opportunity to catch it now!
I say: Highly entertaining, visually enticing and, surprisingly, a commentary on serious issues, both in the past and the present.
See it for: After the parade of beautiful women, it's hard to pick something out, but the acting in this movie is quite remarkable...
*this image is from the Cliff Edge blog
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I like a bit of decadent opulence so I will be checking this out on DVD for sure.
Comment by Cibbuano
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