The Stone Bridge

The example of The Stone Bridge is another milestone where I again disagree with Alena Prokopová. For example, in 2014, she was still calling this bitter comedy unwatchable or unrehearsed, so we didn't like it then. Sure, everyone is mostly afraid of watching The Stone Bridge, because they are not interested in sinking into absolute depression and taking stock of their own decisions in the time of a fading epiphany. However, to expect that after his previous films, Vorel would offer us an intimate civil melodrama with subtle autobiographical elements in the picturesque setting of the Charles Bridge would be somewhat naive. The genesis of Vorel's and Dušek's screenplay only reveals the degenerating current of the mid-1990s, brilliantly portrayed on the one hand by Milena Dvorská as the suffering mother and on the other by Jana Synková as a caricature of the divine Věra Chytilová. Disillusionment, crisis, capitalism, and a plunge into the depths of the stone bridge is what this is all about. It's not pleasant, but some of that suitably exposed bosom and punishment of archetypal evil can please the valiant royals in all of us. (26/06/2015)