ABSTRACT
There are only two films in the history of Czech cinema that can be re-
garded as examples of what later came to be called “the implementation
of feminist aesthetics” in its medusan, anarchic, freewheelingly subversive
form.1 Both of them were made during the period of the Czech New Wave,
when explorations of concepts like man, hero, and (his) quest became crucial
for the politicized aesthetic experimentation in art. Yet the basic terms of
human condition (the questions of freedom, truthfulness, and heroism)
are here often brought back to a markedly conservative framework of the
traditional, essentialist gender roles and positions. The New Wave films
thus-more often than the movies of earlier periods-generalize the
man’s story as a universal human story. This context further underlines
the “distinctiveness” of the two “female” films discussed in this essay and
indicates a certain inaptness of traditional readings for their analysis.2
