Malá mořská víla (The Little Mermaid). 1976. Czechoslovakia. Directed by Karel Kachyňa. Screenplay by Kachyňa, Ota Hofman, based on the book by Hans Christian Andersen. With Miroslava Šafránková, Radovan Lukavský, Petr Svojtka, Libuše Šafránková. 4K digitization by Národní filmový archiv; courtesy Národní filmový archiv. In Czech; English subtitles. 84 min.
After a decade directing one blistering anti-totalitarian allegory after another, director Karel Kachyňa survived the purges that followed 1968 by distancing himself from that earlier body of work. His longtime writing partner Jan Procházka was blacklisted, but Kachyňa was allowed to continue directing after renouncing their collaboration. Made at the peak of what historians call the “offensive” phase of normalization, and coproduced by Barrandov and the Soviet studio Mosfilm, Kachyňa’s The Little Mermaid is one of those rare films that resembles an unusually uncanny dream. Having been forced to abandon overt political subjects, Kachyňa retreats into a world almost entirely without realism: The mermaids’ Sea Kingdom, draped in cloth and soft light, remains one of the most beautifully artificial environments in Czechoslovak cinema. This is the world premiere of a new 4K scan courtesy of the Národní filmový archiv.