The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present
The Prime of Life
Co-presented by the Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia
When
Wed 12 Oct 2022
Abetted by the brilliant Igor Luther’s grainy, overexposed black-and-white cinematography, Jakubisko’s inventive, existential, semi-autobiographical debut feature “signalled not only the birth of an exceptional talent, but also the birth of a Slovak style” (Mira and Antonín J. Liehm). Two brothers in their early 30s – the film’s original Slovak title translates literally as “Christ’s Years”, alluding directly to the age of 33 as signifying one’s peak – establish, through their absurdist games, that life is made up of “love, foolishness and death”.
Also screening on Wed 12 October
Program
Gallows Bacchanalias, Fractious Fairy-Tales and the Rule of Three: The Cinema of Juraj Jakubisko (Wed 5 – Wed 15 Oct)
Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969) – Wed 5 Oct, 7pm
Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself (1989) – Wed 5 Oct, 8.35pm
Perinbaba (1985) – Wed 12 Oct, 7pm
The Prime of Life (1967) – Wed 12 Oct, 8.40pm
About the program
Gallows Bacchanalias, Fractious Fairy-Tales and the Rule of Three: The Cinema of Juraj Jakubisko (Wed 5 – Wed 15 Oct)
The irrepressible Juraj Jakubisko (1938–) represents the baroque vanguard of the Czechoslovak New Wave’s Slovak contingent. After assisting on early works by fellow students Jaromil Jireš and Věra Chytilová at Prague’s FAMU film school, Jakubisko soon made his own mark with a succession of acclaimed, flamboyant and provocative films which saw him dubbed “the Slovak Fellini” at the 1968 Venice Film Festival, but which also earnt him the sustained wrath of his nation’s censors, with three of his four 1960s features shelved until after 1989’s Velvet Revolution, including the extraordinary Birds, Orphans and Fools that opens this season.
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About Melbourne Cinémathèque
Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.
Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven.
