Loves of a Blonde

Saw Loves of a Blonde, a Czech film about a blonde girl's romances. She starts off dating a kind of rough boy who has a scooter. She then meets up with a trio of middle-aged army men. Lastly, she meets up with a younger pianist. The film is not a comedy but has comical parts. The girl is a factory worker during the Stalinist period. She's cloistered with other girls and clearly interested in having a relationship. The army men are explicitly sent to the village to cheer the women up and obliquely (I believe) to produce more sons for the war effort. The women are treated as livestock, kept closed up and guarded through social convention and manipulation until they pair up. At one point, a woman turns into a mannequin in a TV show. Women are objects.

So what of this woman? She is young and looking for her first serious boyfriend. She's startled by the pushiness of her first boyfriend and put off by the unstated but unsubtle expectations of the middle-aged army men. The pianist is kind and clumsy, clearly trying to be manipulative but in a kind of endearing, inept way. Even so, a casual teenage romp is not very acceptable in 1960s Prague. She's in trouble no matter where she turns.

The film sounds kind of dismal but it's comical. There's long circular arguments where men harangue each other and swap sides of the argument. The army men send a bottle of wine to the blonde and her friends but the idiot waiter gives the bottle to a trio of dowdy ladies instead. The theme is depressing but the subject matter is pleasant enough. It is a Czech comedy from the 60s, so don't expect audible laughter, but it's hardly a depression-fest.

I found the film a little dower but winning. It wasn't the prestige piece I was expecting, but more winsome and kind of sweet. The inevitable social opprobrium is delivered in a goofy way, via henpecked husbands and nagging wives. The film acknowledges everyone's failings but in an indulgent, kind way which may have been revolutionary for all I know. Maybe, the film says, we don't have to be so uptight?