Happy End

The butcher Bedrich Frydrych is executed by guillotine. Then his head reattaches to his neck and he declares that he was born at that moment. From there he tells his life backwards: prison, trial, murder, marriage, first meeting. But the narrative presents this not as death but as life's normal flow; pieces come together, the woman returns to life, and in the end Bedrich reaches the state before he met his wife and calls that his death. Oldřich Lipský's film is shot entirely in reverse. The image runs backwards, the lines are spoken in reversed order, and the narration explains everything by the logic of this inverted world. The result is absurdist comedy, but the method is carried through consistently to the end. The narrative counts as one of the most formal experiments of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Vladimír Menšík plays Bedrich. Who it's for: Viewers who like experimental narrative, the Czech New Wave, and black humour. Who it's not for: The method is tiring and hard to follow for some. The subject is a man who dismembered his wife, and the source of the humour is uncomfortable.