Loves of a Blonde

Loves of a Blonde, from 1965, was Milos Forman's second film, but the first to put him on the map internationally. It went to many festivals, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language film.

Though it has many comedic moments, Loves of a Blonde is a very sad film, depicting loneliness. Hana Brejchová is the lead, a young woman working in a shoe factory in a small town where the women outnumber the men 16-1. The factory manager throws a mixer so the female employees can meet soldiers bivouacking nearby. This turns out to be a fiasco, as the soldiers are actually middle-aged reservists who are already married. (One of them tries to hide his wedding ring and it rolls to the feet of the woman he's trying to seduce).

Brejchová ends up with the young pianist, who takes her back to his room and, despite her reticence, makes love to her. He tells her she's angular, and she wonders what that means. He says a woman is usually shaped like a guitar, but she is like a guitar painted by Picasso. He invites her to visit him in Prague, but really he intends on never seeing her again.

But some time later, she shows up at his apartment with a suitcase. He lives with his parents, and in a kind of sit-com plot, they don't know what to do with her. They have no idea who she is. The father is kind, and offers to let her stay the night, but the mother is fiercely against the idea. When the pianist shows up, he recognizes the girl, but his mother won't let them sleep in the same bed, making him share their bed. Brejchová overhears their conversation and realizing they don't give a whit about her, she weeps and returns home.

While this film is regarded as a comedy, I found the last act almost painful the way Forman cuts between her, stoically taking all the fuss, and the bickering of the parents. The mixer scene also has a sense of desperation, as the girls are disappointed in what they have to choose from (they end up hiding in the lavatory). Watching this film may give you the idea that love is impossible to find.

Though that's not a happy take-away, Loves of a Blonde is still a well-made film, intriguingly shot by Miroslav Ondricek and co-written by Forman and Ivan Passer.