Loves of a Blonde Movie Review

Hana Brechová plays the lovely and provocative Andula in Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde, one of his earliest works and definitely one of his simplest compositions.

The story, told in three short acts, largely follows Andula as she finds dissatisfaction in her love life -- and understandably so. She lives in WWII era Czechoslovakia, in a small town where the shoe factory is the only place to work. Women have flocked there for the jobs, to the point where there are 16 women for every man -- and the men are all pudgy military reservist types. What's a girl to do?

When dashing piano player Milda (Vladimír Pucholt) comes to town, he sweeps Andula off her feet, they have a whirlwind romance, and he soon moves on. But Andula decides to hit the road and find him, and the film culminates when she crashes Milda's home in the capital city -- where he lives with his parents.

This final act is sweet and silly, a cute cap on a film that doesn't have a whole lot to say except that love is an inexplicable little thing, particularly for the naive young ladies of the world (and, presumably, especially those in Czechoslovakia). Now available on a Criterion Collection DVD, the film is impressively restored -- though an aggravating vertical line runs through the center of much of the picture. A few extras -- including a single deleted scene and a short interview with Forman -- populate the rest of the disc.

Aka Lásky jedné plavovlásky.