8/10
a gem of a film about girls wanting love
24 June 2006
Warning: Spoilers
At a club that looks more like a high school dance during the 60s in some remote factory town in Czechoslavokia three girls are trying not to make too much eye contact with three of the many soldiers who are in attendance. After much arguing and hesitation the three soldiers approach the girls, not before ordering drinks for them that ended up at the next table of girls. But one of the girls, the main character of the story, has her eye on the young piano player. And with this Milos Forman's socially conscious odd-ball romantic tragic comedy called, Loves of a Blonde, gets rolling.

The soldiers, in spite of much persistence, don't get the girls who end up going home, bored and tired, I mean except the main girl who ends up in a room with the piano player. Subtle humor and youthful and lustful recklessness are portrayed so precisely in this scene where the piano player cleverly gets the girl in bed before ranting about Prague and the girls resemblance to a Picasso-esquire guitar.

To cut a long story short, the girl ends up falling for the guy and goes to visit him in Prague, but ends up meeting his parents. The mother's and the father's argue for some time about the girls arrival, for this is Eastern Europe and girls just don't come to a boys house to stay the night after a one night stand (or maybe its like this...). So the mother and the father partake in some of the most entertaining dialog I've seen in any film about this girls arrival, about their sons travels and job, and ultimately about the issues prevalent to the times, echoing an European conservative sentiment. The boy ends up coming home late after a gig and who knows what else and is met with much heat from his pants wearing mama, and he claims to have never invited any girl...

If I had to say something bad about this film at gun point I might say that it is too small. Its so compact and grounded and so simple. But then again, without any gun to my face, that is exactly what makes this film work. Its like a hidden little gem from the former commie infested corner of Europe.

Forman is a true auteur and this film demonstrates it well. Its a study of youth in the need for love and overworked women in search of something unfamiliar and maybe life saving, maybe city life, more likely love, and simply its about the need to find what you don't have. The factory filled with girls, the soldiers, the dance halls, the parents, the girls dormitory, all paint a very real and comically tragic picture, definitely worth seeing. 8 out of 10.
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