ALL MY GOOD COUNTRYMEN (Jesny, 1968)

(Written and directed by Vojtēch Jesny; starring Radoslav Brzohaty, Vera Galatíková, Vlastimil Brodsky, Vladimír Menšik, Waldemar Matuška, and Drahomíra Hofmanová. Released 1968; watched 2023w10 via Criterion Channel)

The first of my Tycherion-chosen Criterion watches and a winner: deeply moving, often hallucinatory (the animal carnival among them) vignettes spanning+/-15 years in one Czech village as it and the wonderful characters inside it transform and reveal their true natures from post-WWII elation to the ruin of Communist dictatorship, a case study in the raw power of using deeply drawn humans occupying few locations and multiple eras. While Jesny's film may be my first exposure to the Czech New Wave, it most certainly won't be my last. Still processing it – and will be for awhile.

insert: randomness

With huge thanks and many tips of the hat to Michael Donaldson for lighting the way to Mike Bridge's Tycherion – a tool for randomizing Criterion Channel films (named after the Greek goddess of fate and chance) – I'm continuing my efforts to incorporate more randomness into my days (like the button I've programmed on my Stream Deck to call up a random note in Obsidian (though it works only so long as I'm diligent about processing the handwritten into the digital brain, an area in which I've been lacking)), to facilitate the discovery of choices and options I never would have selected otherwise coupled with a Harvey Dent-esque adherence to the result of the thousands-sided coin; I do, as Tycherion's button says, accept my fate (even if I do have to delay it until later in the day).

FWIW, the first film Tycherion selected and the fate I accepted was Vojtech Jazny’s ALL MY GOOD COUNTRYMEN, a brilliant piece of Czech cinema from 1969 – I bow to thy cinematic wisdom, Tycherion.