Lásky jedné plavovlásky

Plot synopsis:
Andula is a working-class young woman living in a fading Czech factory town, where, due to an oversight in central state planning, women outnumber men 16–1. The film opens with an intimate scene between Andula and her fellow shoe-factory-worker friend as they lie in bed in their dormitory discussing the ring given to Andula by her boyfriend Tonda and gossiping about her mildly flirtatious encounter with a forest ranger, which is shown in flashback.
The factory supervisor belatedly realizes that the gender disparity is impairing morale and productivity, so he arranges for an army officer to organize military maneuvers near the town in order for the factory to sponsor a big dance, at which the workers can find male companionship among the soldiery. "They need what we needed when we were young", he explains to a sympathetic officer. Anticipation runs high on both sides, with the girls expecting to meet the young men of their dreams, while the recruits, many of whom are actually middle-aged reservists, out-of-shape and already married, look forward to a night of revelry and seduction. The night of the party is a disappointment for some members of both groups; Andula and her friends are repulsed by the unappealing soldiers, whom they call "old buffers", and a trio of reservists are so nonplussed by the situation that they commit a series of comic faux pas, like sending a bottle of wine to the wrong table and dropping a wedding ring that one of them is trying to hide, only to watch it roll across the floor and land at the feet of the young women who are the objects of their lust. For these people, the mixer is a huge flop, with the girls retiring to the lavatory to devise a way to escape their pursuers and the aging reservists arguing with each other over expenses (one points out that "you can only get it [sex] free at home") and speculating on the necessity of going to the woods in order to consummate their romantic plans ("Imagine, in this weather!"). For others, however, the dance is a success: the factory supervisor looks on in smug satisfaction as couples throng the crowded dance floor, one girl holds her hands together in a gesture showing her delight and gratitude when she is asked to dance, while an obese, balding soldier capers with a mismatched tall, thin brunette, both clearly having the time of their lives.
Andula strikes up a flirtation with Milda, the big-city pianist of the band providing the music. He reads her palm and instructs her in how to rebuff unwanted advances with a kick in the shins. After the party she goes to bed with Milda, although the comic frustrations continue, with Milda fighting a battle with a window shade that won't close, before he feels secure in making love. Afterward, as they lie in bed together, Andula asks what Milda meant when he said she was "angular". He replies that a woman is shaped like a guitar: "And you, you look like a guitar too", he tells her, "but one painted by Picasso." Before they part, he offhandedly invites her to come to Prague and pay him a visit sometime.
Although she hears nothing from Milda after their night together, she still expects to reunite with her dream man shortly, so she breaks off with Tonda, who storms the dormitory demanding his ring back. After listening to a speech by the housemother on the virtues of fidelity and commitment, she packs up her suitcase and arrives on Milda's doorstep in the big city, ready to resume their romance. Milda is not home, and she meets his parents, who have never heard of her and don't know what they should do with her. Milda comes home very late, and after an evening of comically painful tension and uncertainty, his parents decide it's only decent to put the girl up for the night on the sofa, requiring Milda to climb into bed with them in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Forman has described this famous scene: "It’s a tight fit. The old man wants to sleep; the son would like to get thrown out so he can join the girl on the couch, but the mother runs the show and won’t tolerate any such filthy ideas under her roof." Andula, kneeling outside the door of their bedroom, overhears the family squabbling, and when it becomes clear to her that she is not valued in the least, she breaks down in tears and, the next morning, returns to her home. She tells her friends about her "wonderful" trip to the capital and how nice Milda's parents were to her, especially his father, and then she returns to work at the factory.

Tags: romantic

Review:
Milos Forman's "Loves of a Blonde" which he made in Czechoslovakia in 1965 way before "Cuckoo Nest" and "Amadeus" tells a very simple bitter-sweet tale about a teenaged girl who works in a shoe factory in a small town.
The film concerns a young (yes, blonde)girl who seems to be the prettiest one working in what looks like an extremely bleak factory setting in northern Czechoslovakia.
It is true but sad that no one in the world would have known about a small Czech town named Zruc if Czech director Milos Forman had not made this film.It is a good thing that he has made it as its fresh appeal would ensure that it is remembered as a supreme example of a famous cinema movement of the sixties called Czech new wave."Lásky jedné Plavovlásky" is a touching film about sad realities, disappointments in love faced by innocent people when they pursue an idle romantic relationship.It is based on a real event which took place in Milos Forman's life when at Prague he saw a beautiful albeit a lost girl roaming in the middle of the night.We see the lives of young people especially young girls who feel bored as there is hardly any male companionship available to them.As this film was made in socialist times we also get to see the attitude of parents belonging to a socialist system.Milos Forman makes his film memorable when he deals with risks which young people take when they fall in live.He conveys that it is not so easy to continue a relationship which has remained frivolous from its inception.Loves of a blonde maintains it serious stance as there is a talk of a serious problem of dwindling male female ratio faced by many European nations.One of the most funny moments of this film include a good social experiment when an army unit is asked to move to Zruc in order to woo its lonely girls..
Andula is working-class girl living in a Czech town.She sleeps with a pianist called Milda after a party.When she doesn't hear from him, she travels to his parents place, where he still lives.Lásky jedné plavovlásky (English title Loves of a Blonde) from 1965 was the first big hit of Milos Forman.This Czechoslovakian film was nominated for the Golden Globe and Academy Award for best foreign film.In my country, Finland, it won a Jussi Award.Hana Brejchová is wonderful as Andula.Vladimir Pucholt is terrific as Milda.Milada Jezkova and Josef Sebánek are great as his parents.The dialogue is marvelous.Like when Andula and Milda are lying in bed and he explains to her how she's angular.That the woman is shaped like a guitar but she's one painted by Picasso.And there are some terrific scenes.The restaurant scenes are fantastic.Those men on their table are checking on the women on their table, trying to find a way to approach.And when Andula arrives at Milda's place and the mother can't deal with it.Great work from the Czech master..
This is the second of Forman's Czech films I've watched after the other Criterion release, THE FIREMAN'S BALL (1967) - though that was via a late-night Italian TV broadcast some years ago; these two films constitute his most celebrated work from this early phase in his career.While a pleasant and sharply-observed comedy-drama in itself, which must have seemed fresh at the time (particularly the intimate detail of its teenage romance), I feel that a lot of these unassuming but critically-acclaimed foreign films - often made under strained political conditions - tend to come off as overrated when viewed today (a similar recent example I encountered was CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS [1966]).
That said, the film benefits immensely from the wonderful cinematography by Miroslav Ondricek (Forman's longtime collaborator).Besides, it also includes a couple of lengthy - and delightful - set-pieces: the party sequence, in which the heroine and her two best friends are picked up by a trio of geeky middle-aged soldiers; the scene at the home of the girl's 'boyfriend' (with whom she had a one-night stand), where she causes a commotion by turning up unannounced on his doorstep with a packed suitcase!
It has a very subtle and bitter-sweet humor attached to it and the character of the blond girl is deliciously seductive, in her innocent and naive behavior.Most of the movie is made-up by a few very well executed scenes, rather than an elaborated story: the dancing hall scene, the musician's room scene, and the parents' house scene.
Its nearly impossible to make a good film with these constraints, with this national story, because what works to define self doesn't work in packaging something that needs to stand alone.This may be the only Czech movie made in the country that finds a solution.
The factory girls in their dreaming dormitory, the factory owner with the bosses, the aging reservists trying to score, the pianist who plays the girl into bed, the parents who annotate storytelling by wondering about the nature of story for 15 minutes.
Watch it once straight through because it's funny as hell in that gentle way the Czech know so well, just light and bitter enough to be like getting tipsy on life, delighted at the tipsiness.
It's well made and well acted, you can see why Milos Forman was quickly tapped by Hollywood.Watching it once, you'll have this as your template—a teenage girl's impressionable drift through male sexual whims, and bittersweet realization in the end of heartbreak every time.
But it makes its way to the right one, and we have the two soldiers go after the two girls (but not the blondie), and that subplot abandoned with inviting glances.Now her seduction (remember, still a story she will tell) but we actually skip sex, and go straight to the intimacy and youthful joking around on the bed which is what she yearns for, connection.
Mr. Forman has put an emphasis on simplicity and naivety in relationships and a vain struggle for a youthful love, which is not realistic in socio-political terms.Andula is a working-class young woman, who living in a fading Czech factory town.
They are very, very different from his later work in USA, which shows that he realized he couldn't continue in this "tradition" - unless he wanted to discredit himself, of course.What I find especially fascinating, however, is the fact that Loves of a Blonde have 16 comments on IMDb.com, and The Firemen's Ball even breathtaking 18 comments!
In any case, praising movies like The Firemen's Ball or Loves of a Blonde as jewels of Czech cinema - only because they are early works of a director, who later succeeded in USA - makes me deeply ashamed..
Here's a romantic comedy with some drama undertones made with charm and lots of style by a Milos Forman way before "Amadeus" and "One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest"; this is a film made during his Czech phase which is also interesting.
In "Lásky Jedné Plavovlásky" ("Loves of a Blonde") Hana Brejchová plays Andula, a pretty young girl living in a small city whose majority is formed by young girls like her waiting for a nice boy to appear.
We follow Andula and her friends during a party where they are seen as object of adoration by three soldiers out of duty and way out the girls league since they're quite old for them but they insist with them dancing and paying a bottle of wine they don't even want.
But in the same party, there's Milda (Vladimír Pucholt) a young pianist interest in Andula, also a persistent guy who liked Andula and keeps most part of the film trying to make a move on her.
He'll be more successful than the soldiers but the destiny awaits some surprises for him...and for her too."Loves of a Blonde" is a humored tale about a woman's journey to the discover of the first love, the enchantments and disenchantment's of it, but also about that old talk about woman's virtue, the value of female honor in not hanging out with too many boys at the same time because this wasn't seen in good eyes by the society (you'll see this in the school scene where the teacher says that to the girls and they make a pledge based on a elevated moral behavior).
I quote as "old talk" because times are way different than the one presented in the film and people have another values in terms of almost everything, so what was a something that only men could do, now women can do too if they want; if boys can date or kiss several girls, girls can do the same.
It's a quite updated view this film had back in the 1960's in showing Andula trying to not flirt with soldiers in one way but end up talking to them, then later to have a romantic evening with Milda and...she already had a boyfriend as we discover way later.
Even though some might condemn this kind of behavior, in the film is presented without any vulgarity and without any excess; it's well humored, very simple and it doesn't demand much from the viewers to make them laugh; laughter comes naturally with "Loves of a Blonde".
Among the best moments of the film are the soldier who lost his wedding ring in the ballroom during the party (the whole segment of the party is funny with the unsure soldiers trying to make a move on the girls, then the girls keep saying to themselves they don't the guys near them but can't stop looking at them); Milda's insistent moves on Andula that even includes teaching her how to defend herself from guys like him; the "I don't have a girl in Prague" quote Milda keeps saying trying to amuse the girl saying she's the only one in his life; and segment with Andula visiting Milda's irritating parents (although this moment got more irritating than funny, specially because of the mom, one of the most annoying characters ever presented in a film).
In Loves of a Blonde Milos Forman continued dealing with the same subjects he did in his first feature film Black Peter (1964); the aimless youth and the Czechslovakian society.
After Loves of a Blonde he started working on his next film, The Firemen's Ball (1966).
The film is quite ruthless but also humane and Forman treats his characters with warm love.
Nothing works.Loves of a Blonde is an ironic social film but also a warm story about love and soul searching.
A factory manager in rural Czechoslovakia bargains with the army to send men to the area, to boost the morale of his young female workers, deprived of male company since the local boys have been conscripted.Loves of a Blonde has often been identified as one of the most significant and ambitious productions of the Czech New Wave, a movement in which a group of young filmmakers, many of whom were educated by the national film academy in Prague, including Forman, Ján Kadár, Věra Chytilová and Jiří Menzel, among others, took significant political risks by using cinema to protest the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state.I'll say it before and I'll say it again, of all the "new wave" movements in Europe, by far my favorite is the one that came out of the Czech cinema.
Funny and sad at the same time, the first Forman's movie I ever saw and so very-telling about his personality as a filmmaker.If you like the work of Forman and want to see his development as a director, this and "Hori, ma panenko" are the films you cannot miss..
Czech-American screenwriter, professor and director Milos Forman's second feature film which was shot in 1964, entirely on location in Zruc nad Sázavou and written by Ivan Passar, Jaroslav Papousek and Milos Forman, tells the story about a young working-class woman named Andula who lives in a small town called Zruc in Czechoslovakia where the local men is outnumbered by the local female population.
Andula is engaged with her boyfriend Tondo, but when she attends a social gathering with her friends Marie and Jana she meets a pianist named Milda and gets involved in a new romance.This slow-paced romantic comedy from the mid-1960s is a brilliantly written and directed social satire which portrays a young woman's non-conformist love life in a very low-keyed manner while making a sharp critique of notions of democracy during a period when the Czech government was still being ruled by a Communist regime.
Milos Forman's vividly narrated film gained an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language film in 1967, was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1965 and is emphasized by Czech actress Hana Brejchová's memorable and understated acting performance in her debut role as the charming Andula who is looking for love..
Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde is a wonderful movie...sweet and awful.
Sweet, because Forman gives us no one we can dislike as he tells us the story of Andula (Hana Brejchova), a young factory worker in the depressing town of Zruc, making endless pairs of shoes alongside dozens of other young women.
Not Milda (Vladimir Puchott), the young piano player who comes to town with a band, seduces Andula, and then leaves for Prague.
The movie at the basic level of story-telling is effective because the people, from Andula to the bit parts of people at the dance, look and act like people who aren't acting.
The Communist regime eventually caught on to the picture of life in Czechoslovakia which Forman presented with such apparent good humor in Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen's Ball.
a gem of a film about girls wanting love.
At a club that looks more like a high school dance during the 60s in some remote factory town in Czechoslavokia three girls are trying not to make too much eye contact with three of the many soldiers who are in attendance.
But one of the girls, the main character of the story, has her eye on the young piano player.
And with this Milos Forman's socially conscious odd-ball romantic tragic comedy called, Loves of a Blonde, gets rolling.The soldiers, in spite of much persistence, don't get the girls who end up going home, bored and tired, I mean except the main girl who ends up in a room with the piano player.
"Loves of a Blonde", for some obscene reason, is listed as a comedy.Perhaps that was Milos Forman's intention when the movie was first released in 1965.
I ask anyone who has seen the movie to please enlighten me on what was funny (aside from the scene with Milda's parents, which was more pathetic than humorous).What really makes the film intriguing is its unintentional voyeuristic quality.
The Black & White film magnificently highlights the Czech countryside, where we meet Andula - a worker in a local shoe factory.
They have a party one night at a local bar and she meets Milda, a musician with the band.The seduction scene between Milda and Andula takes up most of the film but everything about it still resonates today (which is basically a guy will do or say anything to get into a girl's pants).
Milda eventually comes home (after seducing yet another girl) and to his parents pretends not to know Andula and denies ever inviting her.
This Czech film from the mid 1960s is a drab piece of socialist realism, in the form of a quite bitter comedy (by Milos Forman, one of the most overrated filmmakers ever).
The story: Milda, a young pianist goes to drab industrial small town to play one night, meets the bird-brained working class blonde Andula during the ball, they make love at his hotel room, he returns to Prague, she breaks with her boyfriend after a fight, and decides to go to Prague to meet Milda.
With still having strong memories about being caught completely by surprise from Milos Forman's far better than expected 1984 epic Amadeus,I was thrilled to recently discover that a fellow IMDb'er had shared a link to a Youtube page of an early Forman movie from a film movement that I had recently been hearing quite a bit about called the Czech New Wave,which lead to me excitingly getting ready to surf the wave for the first time.The plot:Fearful over their being not enough boys for girls to fall in love for in his village,due to their only being one man to every 16 women in the village,a local businessman decides to do a deal with a military general,which will allow for restless soldiers to pay a visit to the town,in the hope that they end up becoming romantically involved with the residents.Attending a late night party with her dormitory friends,Andula tells her friends to ignore the advances that are getting made to them by a group of old,worn down soldiers.Leaveing her friends behind on the watchful gaze of the army men,Andula secretly pays a visit to a guy called Milda,who along with having played with played in a band earlier in the night,is also someone who Andula is starting to develop a real crush for.Half-heartedly accepting Milda's invitation for her to pay a visit to his room,so that Milda can read her palms,Andula soon begins to find out what direction her palm lines,and her life are heading in.View on the film:For the relationship between Andula (played by a cute,wonderfully uncertain Hana Brejchová) and Milda (played by a very good,manipulative Vladimír Pucholt),the screenplay by director Milos Forman and co- writer's Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer and Václav Sasek use Andula's wish for the relationship to work as a sly way to include some subtle commentary on the communist regime of the time,with Andula working in a shoe shop factory making identical pares of shoes,being connected to the owner of the business trying to get all of the women of the village to settle down with men from the country's old,rusting military.Continuing on the films theme in his directing style,Forman and cinematography Miroslav Ondrícek show in stark black & white everything that Andula is up against in her desire not to conform,from Andula's village looking like a wasteland,and Forman placing the viewer in Andula's corner when a vote is taking at her dormitory for no boys to be allowed in the building.Forman also expertly reveals the full Horror's of what Andula is going against,when after making her first ever visit out of the village to see Milda's parents,Andula is met by the hard stare of Milda's mum,who openly tells Andula that she does not trust any outsiders..