Recensioni de* critic*

“Something Different,” from 1963, is radically and thrillingly different from more or less any film that was being made at the time (and is significantly more advanced than most films that have been made since); as a first feature, it’s astonishing. It’s a modernist melodrama that makes its aesthetic audacity obvious from the very first shots...

Even in her earliest work, which is only now becoming readily accessible in the West, we can see Věra Chytilová reaching beyond the ordinary for something altogether radical, raw and refreshing – totally experimental films with a message, social value and cultural resonance.

Both protagonists are governed by men and social expectation, and it's with varying shades of tragedy that each cling to their routine even when presented with the opportunity to serve themselves.

Chytilová created something with a poise that defies us not to be seduced by it, supported matchlessly by her collaborators in black and white cinematography (Jan Curík), music (Jirí Slitr) and editing (Miroslav Hájek).

As with her later films, while Chytilová is filmmaking with a definite feminist bent, she is more interested in complex female characters and she never moralises on their behalf as much as questioning both the choices available to them and those that they take.

Viewers might expect a film of contrasts between the mother in her private sphere and the gymnast in the public eye, but the women share a similar degree of boredom and frustration, and both briefly resist the confines of routine, expectation and isolation.

The lot of women in a patriarchal society of double standards and predatory sexualisation was a constant theme in her films, and was often turned on its head by female protagonists with no qualms about going to extremes, giving her work its acerbic, black-humoured bite.

At the end, we feel the two women have more to unite than divide them; if one has more to show for her moment of triumph than the other, they both ultimately take responsibility for their decisions, and their lives.