Intimate Lighting

Ivan Passer's 1965 Czechoslovak film brings two old friends from the conservatoire back together in a small town. One is a successful cellist in Prague, the other makes his living playing funerals in the provinces; across a weekend there is eating, drinking, and almost nothing happens. The whole point of the film lies inside that nothing: how the two men measure their lives against each other, what goes unsaid, the order of the family table. Passer made the quietest film of the Czechoslovak new wave; no politics, no heroism, only the light comedy of daily life. Passer left the country after 1968, and this remained the only Czechoslovak film he directed alone. Who it's for: viewers who like the Czechoslovak new wave and cinema of everyday life. Who it's not for: anyone wanting incident, or who will find a film without narrative progression empty.