156: The Cassandra Cat (with Ashley Naftule)

Junk Filter

Arizona-based writer and playwright Ashley Naftule returns to the podcast for a look at the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s, focusing on the recently rediscovered 1963 film The Cassandra Cat, and its director Vojtěch Jasný.

In the strange fairy tale The Cassandra Cat, a village is disrupted when a travelling circus comes to town featuring a magical cat wearing sunglasses who can reveal the true natures of the townsfolk by changing their colours when he looks at them, turning thieves grey, hypocrites purple and lovers a bright red, scandalizing the adults into a panic and delighting all the children.

One of the few directors to win two prizes at Cannes, Jasný is not as well remembered as his Czech contemporaries like Miloš Forman but the artistic movement he was a part of was extremely influential on world cinema, using avant-garde techniques and comedy to express modern Czechoslovakian concerns in the brief period where the Soviet Union permitted more freedom of expression and less censorship.

We also discuss another, darker film by Jasný, 1969’s All My Good Countrymen, made right when Moscow sent tanks to Czechoslovakia to crush the revolution and reestablish “normalization” of the state. Despite winning the Best Director prize at Cannes for it, Jasný was pressured by the new regime to apologize for making the film, and instead went into exile along with his contemporaries, with their films banned domestically until the final days of the Soviet Union.

Plus: we discuss the Cat Movies retrospective on the Criterion Channel, including some favourite film felines of ours.

The Cassandra Cat and All My Good Countrymen are currently streaming on Criterion Channel.

Become a patron of the podcast to access to exclusive episodes every month. Over 30% of Junk Filter episodes are exclusively available to patrons. To support this show directly please subscribe at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Ashley Naftule on Twitter.

Trailer for The Cassandra Cat (Vojtěch Jasný, 1963)

Highlights of cat movies not included as part of the Cat Movies Criterion series, mentioned on the show

Trailer for The Uncanny (Denis Héroux, 1977)

The incredible cat vs dog fight scene from The Cat (Lam Ngai Kai, 1992)

The Cat Telepathy scene from Go (Doug Liman, 1999)

Trailer for A Talking Cat!?! (David DeCouteau, 2013)

Trailer for Kedi (Ceyda Torun, 2016)