Sun April 6, 2014
Diamonds of the Night, Jan Nemec (Czechoslovakia, 1964)
SEE EVENT DETAILS
at Pacific Film Archive (PFA) Theater
(see times)
New Print!
“Nemec’s technique is as emotionally intuitive as it is masterful, purposefully scrambling past and present, handheld realism (a breathless opening tracking shot) and Buñuellian surrealism.”—Time Out
(Demanty noci). A brilliantly stylized, expressionist nightmare in film form, Diamonds of the Night turns the horrors of the Holocaust into existential fear. Concentration camp jackets on their backs, two boys hop off a train and start running, and with that startling image Diamonds of the Night is off and running as well, never stopping as it careens through a night of darkness and constant movement. Pure cinema at its finest, Diamonds has only a few lines of dialogue and no real “plot”; its brilliantly fluid black-and-white camerawork, mixed with hallucinatory close-ups and runs through the forest, capture everything we need to know. Nemec’s portrait of a group of doddering old men, gathering to eagerly hunt down the boys, also tells us all we need to know of the society that exists around them. The title of the story by Czech writer Arnost Lustig from which the film is drawn, Darkness Casts No Shadow, appropriately captures its mood of moral nightfall.
—Jason Sanders
• Written by Nemec, Arnost Lustig, based on Lustig's story “Darkness Casts No Shadow.” Photographed by Jaroslav Kucera, Miroslav Ondricek. With Ladislav Jansky, Antonin Kumbera, Irma Bischofova. (64 mins, In Czech with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm)
Preceded by A Loaf of Bread (Sousto) (Czechoslovakia, 1960). Nemec’s graduation short from FAMU is a precursor to Diamonds of the Night, and follows two prisoners and a loaf of bread. (11 mins, Minimal dialog in Czech with German subtitles with English translation provided, B&W, 35mm)
Total running time: 75 mins
show less
“Nemec’s technique is as emotionally intuitive as it is masterful, purposefully scrambling past and present, handheld realism (a breathless opening tracking shot) and Buñuellian surrealism.”—Time Out
(Demanty noci). A brilliantly stylized, expressionist nightmare in film form, Diamonds of the Night turns the horrors of the Holocaust into existential fear. Concentration camp jackets on their backs, two boys hop off a train and start running, and with that startling image Diamonds of the Night is off and running as well, never stopping as it careens through a night of darkness and constant movement. Pure cinema at its finest, Diamonds has only a few lines of dialogue and no real “plot”; its brilliantly fluid black-and-white camerawork, mixed with hallucinatory close-ups and runs through the forest, capture everything we need to know. Nemec’s portrait of a group of doddering old men, gathering to eagerly hunt down the boys, also tells us all we need to know of the society that exists around them. The title of the story by Czech writer Arnost Lustig from which the film is drawn, Darkness Casts No Shadow, appropriately captures its mood of moral nightfall.
—Jason Sanders
• Written by Nemec, Arnost Lustig, based on Lustig's story “Darkness Casts No Shadow.” Photographed by Jaroslav Kucera, Miroslav Ondricek. With Ladislav Jansky, Antonin Kumbera, Irma Bischofova. (64 mins, In Czech with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm)
Preceded by A Loaf of Bread (Sousto) (Czechoslovakia, 1960). Nemec’s graduation short from FAMU is a precursor to Diamonds of the Night, and follows two prisoners and a loaf of bread. (11 mins, Minimal dialog in Czech with German subtitles with English translation provided, B&W, 35mm)
Total running time: 75 mins
New Print!
“Nemec’s technique is as emotionally intuitive as it is masterful, purposefully scrambling past and present, handheld realism (a breathless opening tracking shot) and Buñuellian surrealism.”—Time Out
(Demanty noci). A brilliantly stylized, expressionist nightmare in film form, Diamonds of the Night turns the horrors of the Holocaust into existential fear. Concentration camp jackets on their backs, two boys hop off a train and start running, and with that startling image Diamonds of the Night is off and running as well, never stopping as it careens through a night of darkness and constant movement. Pure cinema at its finest, Diamonds has only a few lines of dialogue and no real “plot”; its brilliantly fluid black-and-white camerawork, mixed with hallucinatory close-ups and runs through the forest, capture everything we need to know. Nemec’s portrait of a group of doddering old men, gathering to eagerly hunt down the boys, also tells us all we need to know of the society that exists around them. The title of the story by Czech writer Arnost Lustig from which the film is drawn, Darkness Casts No Shadow, appropriately captures its mood of moral nightfall.
—Jason Sanders
• Written by Nemec, Arnost Lustig, based on Lustig's story “Darkness Casts No Shadow.” Photographed by Jaroslav Kucera, Miroslav Ondricek. With Ladislav Jansky, Antonin Kumbera, Irma Bischofova. (64 mins, In Czech with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm)
Preceded by A Loaf of Bread (Sousto) (Czechoslovakia, 1960). Nemec’s graduation short from FAMU is a precursor to Diamonds of the Night, and follows two prisoners and a loaf of bread. (11 mins, Minimal dialog in Czech with German subtitles with English translation provided, B&W, 35mm)
Total running time: 75 mins
read more
“Nemec’s technique is as emotionally intuitive as it is masterful, purposefully scrambling past and present, handheld realism (a breathless opening tracking shot) and Buñuellian surrealism.”—Time Out
(Demanty noci). A brilliantly stylized, expressionist nightmare in film form, Diamonds of the Night turns the horrors of the Holocaust into existential fear. Concentration camp jackets on their backs, two boys hop off a train and start running, and with that startling image Diamonds of the Night is off and running as well, never stopping as it careens through a night of darkness and constant movement. Pure cinema at its finest, Diamonds has only a few lines of dialogue and no real “plot”; its brilliantly fluid black-and-white camerawork, mixed with hallucinatory close-ups and runs through the forest, capture everything we need to know. Nemec’s portrait of a group of doddering old men, gathering to eagerly hunt down the boys, also tells us all we need to know of the society that exists around them. The title of the story by Czech writer Arnost Lustig from which the film is drawn, Darkness Casts No Shadow, appropriately captures its mood of moral nightfall.
—Jason Sanders
• Written by Nemec, Arnost Lustig, based on Lustig's story “Darkness Casts No Shadow.” Photographed by Jaroslav Kucera, Miroslav Ondricek. With Ladislav Jansky, Antonin Kumbera, Irma Bischofova. (64 mins, In Czech with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm)
Preceded by A Loaf of Bread (Sousto) (Czechoslovakia, 1960). Nemec’s graduation short from FAMU is a precursor to Diamonds of the Night, and follows two prisoners and a loaf of bread. (11 mins, Minimal dialog in Czech with German subtitles with English translation provided, B&W, 35mm)
Total running time: 75 mins
show less
Date/Times:
Pacific Film Archive (PFA) Theater
2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720
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