Intimate Lighting [Intimní Osvetlení] **** (1965, Zdenek Bezusek, Vera Kresadlová, Jan Vostrcil, Karel Blazek, Miroslav Cvrk, Dagmar Redinová, Jaroslava Stedra) – Movie Review 10,190

Director Ivan Passer’s sweet, affectionately viewed 1965 Sixties Czech New Wave cinema social comedy Intimate Lighting [Intimní Osvetlení] is about the constant pleasures of friendship, with its wry smiles tinged with sadness.

Milos Forman’s ex-writer Passer makes a beautiful, deliciously lively job of this mundane tale about a cello player (Zdenek Bezusek) and his fiancée (Vera Kresadlová, Forman’s wife at the time) recalling old times as they dine and make music with friends from the past on a visit to a small Czech town.

It is a remarkable first feature, but it also proved Passer’s final film in his own land before he left for America with Forman at the time of the Soviet invasion in 1968.

Also in the cast are Jan Vostrcil, Karel Blazek, Miroslav Cvrk, Dagmar Redinová, and Jaroslava Stedra.

Ivan Passer died on 9 January 2020, age 86. He worked on the scripts of Forman’s first four films: Konkurs (1963), Black Petr (1964), Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen’s Ball (1967).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,190

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