The best Josef Somr’s drama movies
We present our ranking of the best Josef Somr’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Josef Somr.
Closely Watched Trains
7.6/10
In a small town still occupied by the Germans as World War II's tide is turning toward the Allies, apprentice train-watcher Milos is oblivious to the war. Instead, he is obsessed with having his first sexual experience. Despite the favors of train conductor Masa, Milos has no luck. His quest leads him to a female Resistance fighter who, in passing, recruits him to the cause. As Milos finally finds love, danger draws closer.
Morgiana
7.2/10
Jealous of her vapidly "good" sister's popularity, poisonous Viktoria doses pretty Klara's tea with a slow-acting fatal substance. As the latter grows hysterically weak, the former finds success increasingly compromised by guilt, blackmail, and the pesky need to kill others lest she be exposed.
The Joke
7.1/10
In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.
The Snowdrop Festival
7.5/10
This movie is based on texts of Bohumil Hrabal, world-known Czech prosaic. It's a story (in a form of a mosaic of short episodes and pictures) about the sadness and happiness of inhabitants of Kersko (Kersko is a small woody area full of cottages and roods). These people are both simple and sensitive, they have their own pleasures (e.g. Leli is a collector of cheap, but inutile things) and the greatest delight of all of them is a hunting. Crude poetics of amateur hunting is screened by dreamy pictures of this area. Menzel mixes sentimental lyricism and rough (but not vulgar!) humor and the outcome is the never-ending landscape of continuous life in the proximate nearness of nature. The performances of actors are brilliant. Both Rudolf Hrusinsky as a Franz and Jaromír Hanzlik as a Leli have nonrecurring charm bottomed on a pain and inebriation. Only the music is not perfect: Jiri Sust usually assembled his film music from his older works and in this movie there is many quotations.
The Divine Emma
7.1/10
The opera lady singer Ema Destinnová is in all her splendor at the American stages. But in Europe there rages war and she decides to return home to Bohemia.
The Liberation of Prague
5.2/10
On 20th of April 1945 the Soviet army launches its attack on Berlin. The end has come for Nazi Germany and Hitler decides to commit suicide. In Prague K.H. Frank (Nazi Secretary of State and Chief of police in the Protectorate of Bohemia a Moravia) discusses with his commanders how to transform the city into an impregnable fortress, but the Praguers do not intend to wait any longer. From the early hours of 4th of May people start assembling in the streets and tearing down German signs. On the next day, the 5th of May, the uprising begins.
The Valley of the Bees
7.8/10
Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Armin now not only assumes control of his fathers properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother.
Attention, Rounds!
7.2/10
A story about an everyday life of an inflectional department of Prague hospital.
How Poets Are Losing Their Illusions
7.2/10
A story about a young medical school student and his adventures.
Fruit of Paradise
6.7/10
An experimental retelling of the story of Adam and Eve which then progresses into an allegorical depiction of the loss of innocence.
Defendant
7.2/10
Managers at the construction of a big hydro plant are accused of having embezzled money.
Velký případ
6.4/10
Švédská zápalka
7.4/10
Hotel for Strangers
6.9/10
A gifted poet checks into a Gothic hotel in hopes of meeting the woman with whom he has long been enamored. He is surrounded by a variety of offbeat characters like the hefty homosexual cook, shadowy clerks, snooty waiters, and valets prone to violence. He finally meets the woman of his dreams only to lose her and ultimately meet with tragedy.
The Secret of Steel City
6.4/10
The film is a metaphor for the Cold War. It depicts two neighbouring nations: peace loving Fortuna and the not so peaceful land of the Steel City.
Tažní ptáci
7.9/10
Paper Sleeve
6.1/10
Smoke on the Potato Fields
7.1/10
In this character study by Czech director Frantisek Vlacil, a stout middle-aged physician whose marriage has come apart establishes a practice in a small town. Gradually he's drawn into the lives of his patients—a childless couple, a pregnant girl with a stern mother, the son of a duck farmer—and each relationship reveals a bit more about him and the idyllic but insular community.
Fools and a Girl
6.6/10
A coming of age drama about a young boy Jirka who lives in Prague.
Comrades
6.8/10
Chytilová was not allowed to direct films between 1969 and 1976. The sole exception was the made-for-TV film Kamarádi, now virtually unknown.
