Metrograph, an entertainment company founded in 2016 and based in New York City, will show two restored films by Jiří Menzel, a famous Czech film director and a member of the Czechoslovak New Wave: Closely Watched Trains and Larks on a String. Both films will be presented at Metrograph in theatre on January 27-29, 2023.
JIŘÍ MENZEL X2
Two Rare Restorations From the Oscar-Winning Czechoslovak New Wave Director Come to Metrograph
Spotlight includes the US Premiere of LARKS ON A STRING in 4K and CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS, Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 1968 Academy Awards
Metrograph's this month’s offering includes two restored films by Jiří Menzel, a famous Czech film director, theatre director, actor, and screenwriter. Menzel, a member of the Czechoslovak New Wave, became internationally famous in 1967, when his first feature film, Closely Watched Trains, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His film Larks on a String was filmed in 1969, but was banned by the Czechoslovakian government. It was finally released in 1990 after the fall of the Communist regime. The film won the Golden Bear at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.
We lost one of the last living giants of the heroic age of the Czechoslovak New Wave in 2020 with the death of 82-year-old Jiří Menzel, more responsible than any other single director for announcing Czech cinema’s arrival on the world stage when his tender, tragic Closely Watched Trains, an international arthouse phenomenon based on a Bohumil Hrabal novel, won Best Foreign Language Film at the 1968 Academy Awards. This two-film tribute of recent Menzel restorations pairs that beloved title with another, lesser-known Hrabal adaptation, Menzel’s biting 1969 satire Larks on a String—lesser-known only because it was suppressed by government censors until the Velvet Revolution of 1989, when audiences could finally see a “new” film from Menzel at the peak of his powers, when gentle, humane artistry could seem to the authoritarian state like an imminent threat.
Restorations courtesy of the Národní filmový archiv.
Jiří Menzel x 2 will run from January 27-29, with select encore screenings to follow.
More information about the screenings here: https://metrograph.com/category/menzelx2/
