Capricious Summer

Summer in a small river town. Three middle aged men spend their days together: Antonín, who runs the bathing place, a retired officer and a priest. The weather is grey, the water is cold and nobody comes. They talk, they drink and they needle each other. Then a tightrope walker arrives in the town with a young woman. All three take an interest in her and all three make fools of themselves in turn. Jiří Menzel directs and plays the priest. The source is Vladislav Vančura's novel. It is Menzel's second film; his first, Closely Watched Trains, had won the Academy Award for foreign language film. The tone is measured and melancholy; the comedy comes not from large gestures but from talk and timing. The subject is growing old. All three men are at a point in their lives with no way back, and the woman's arrival reminds them of it; the film gives that not cruelly but with a calm acceptance. Vančura's language is literary and the film keeps it; the characters speak in a way nobody speaks in daily life, and that is deliberate. It won the main prize at the Karlovy Vary film festival. Who it is for: viewers who like Czech cinema and quiet comedy rooted in literature. Who it is not for: nothing happens, the pace is very slow, and the humour is very low key.