BAYAYA

BAJAJA

1950, JIRI TRNKA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 75 MIN.

sunday, june 17th at 3:45pm

wednesday, june 20th at 6:00pm

Trnka's third feature is a medieval-set fairy tale, based on a book that he illustrated in his younger days. Sumptuously visualized, with a superb score by V?clav Trojan and sung narration by a boys choir, it tells of a peasant lad whose dead mother appears to him in the form of a white horse. She takes him to the gloomy castle of a king with three daughters; he falls in love with the youngest and battles to release all three from the evil spell of a hydra-like dragon whose heads proliferate faster than the brave youth can lop them off. Highlights include a beautifully staged jousting tournament, and a court-jester character whose casual mistreatment darkens the fairy-tale atmosphere. Trnka's daughter Helena declared this her favorite of her father's films and saw in the multi-headed dragon an analog for the repressive state bureaucracy with which Trnka had to contend. When it was released in France, BAYAYA was lauded in a lengthy Cahiers du Cin?ma review by a certain Christian (later Chris) Marker. In Czech with English subtitles. DCP digital. (MR)