Thursday, October 25, 2012

Román s basou / Romance with a Double Bass

[Bassoviulun tarina / Bassoviulu / Romaani bassoviulusta / Romanssi bassoviulusta]. CZ 1949. PC: Studio Kresleného a Loutkového Filmu. D+design: Jiří Trnka – based on the short story "Roman s kontrabasom" / "Роман с контрабасом" (1886) by Anton Chekhov. AN (moving of the dolls): Břetislav Pojar, Zdeněk Hrabě, Stanislav Látal, Jan Karpaš, Bohuslav Šrámek. DP: Emanuel Franek. M: Václav Trojan. There is a narrator in this movie. 398 m / 15 min. Print from Národní filmový archiv (Prague), electronic subtitles in Finnish by Tomas Lehecka. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Jiří Trnka), 25 Oct 2012.

The story: before the evening concert at the prince's castle the bassist takes a swim, but thieves rob his clothes. The bassist notices a beautiful girl, the prince's daughter, fishing with a rod and line, and attaches a bouquet onto the line. Trying to pull the heavy catch the daughter needs to get into the water, too, and takes her clothes off, but the thieves rob them, as well. The gallant bassist offers the shelter of his double-bass case to the girl and tries to catch the thieves. Meanwhile, his fellow players notice the now surprisingly heavy case and carry it with them to the castle, where the surprise is great when a knocking is heard from inside the case. And still today local people claim they can hear melancholy chords of the double-bass from under the bridge.

A funny and colourful puppet animation based faithfully on an early humoristic sketch by Chekhov. In Jiří Trnka's oeuvre this animation belongs in the vicinity of Archanděl Gabriel a paní Husa based on a story in Decamerone by Boccaccio, but Román s basou is much gentler.

A nice print.

No comments: