The late, great Czech filmmaker Věra Chytilová followed her iconic film Daisies (1966) with the even more extraordinary Fruit of Paradise. Examining issues of truth and lies, friendship and betrayals she creates, through a symbolic retelling of the Adam and Eve story, a ravishing tapestry of ideas, textures, and visual tropes set to composer Zdeněk Liška's incredible score.
As a result, Chytilová was condemned by the authorities for her 'vehicles of nihilism' and banned from filmmaking for several years. Acknowledged since as a key film of the Czech New Wave but unseen for many years, Fruit of Paradise is a cinematic tour de force of sound, colour and technique by a group of artists working at the peak of their powers.
The DVD is presented from a new HD digital transfer prepared by the Czech National Film Archive, and also features Věra Chytilová's renowned 1961short film Ceiling (Strop) plus an exclusive new essay on the film by author Peter Hames.
• Presented from a new high-definition digital transfer prepared by the Czech National Film Archive.
• Věra Chytilová's renowned 1961 short film Ceiling (Strop).
• 20-page booklet featuring a new essay by author and film programmer Peter Hames.
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
itka Nováková - Eva
Karel Novák - Josef
Jan Schmid - Robert
and with Eva Gabrielová and Julius Albert
Directed by Věra Chytilová
Screenplay - Věra Chytilová, Ester Krumbachová
Director of photography - Jaroslav Kučera
Music - Zdeněk Liška
Editor - Miloslav Hájek
Set design - Ester Krumbachová
Art direction - Vladimír Labský
Sound - Ladislav Hausdorf
Věra Chytilová's renowned films Daisies (which includes the documentary Journey/Cesta), the provocative Traps and her acclaimed debut feature Something Different (plus the short
A Bagful of Fleas) are also available.
1970 Cannes Film Festival / Official Selection
1970 Chicago International Film Festival / Jury Award
"Luridly subversive... impossible to summarize and hard to resist" Village Voice
"Chytilova's wild, extravagant, and ravishing romp was
certainly intoxicating on a sensual level. It came at the end of her rebellious period as the great hope and holy terror of the new Czech cinema" Jonathan Rosenbaum
"An audacious combination of allegorical narrative and the avant-garde... a brilliantly executed aesthetic exercise. It is formalism at its most beautiful"
Daniel Bird, Central Europe Review
"Chytilová's film is as visually stunning and thrillingly experimental as her previous work Daisies" AllMovie.com
"This visually expressive work that harnesses photography and music for an avant garde allegory. Playing as usual with expectations around genre and gender, the director offers an appropriately offbeat fable of attraction... Very rarely seen in Britain, it is both of its times and outside the clock in its intent"
Time Out