Postřižiny (Cutting It Short). 1980. Czechoslovakia. Directed by Jiří Menzel. Screenplay by Menzel, Bohumil Hrabal. With Magdalena Vášáryová, Jiří Schmitzer, Jaromír Hanzlík. 4K digital restoration by Národní filmový archiv; courtesy Národní filmový archiv. In Czech; English subtitles. 98 min.
In 1969, Jiří Menzel was banned from directing after adapting Bohumil Hrabal’s short stories as Larks on a String. This “involuntary break” was lifted four years later on condition he make a normalization-approved film about the dignity of manual labor (the underrated Who Looks for Gold?), and it wasn’t until 1980 that he would work with Hrabal again, on this adaptation of his novella. This is Menzel at his most sentimental and sumptuous: a horny, quintessentially Czech comedy set in a brewery manager’s household during the First Czechoslovak Republic. Even in this context, Menzel still found room for a swipe at the authorities—a slaughtered pig is named after the man who would censor and rework scripts at Barrandov Studios. Magda Vášáryová plays the manager’s wife with startling sensuality, radiant even while gutting a pig and swigging beer.