All My Good Countrymen, (Vojtech Jasny, 1969)
Several of the Czech New Wave films I've watched recently are ones that I had first viewed a few years ago. The other night I watched a film that I had somehow never seen before: Vojtech Jasny's wonderful and bittersweet 1969 film All My Good Countrymen. It's set in a small Czechoslovakian village, which passes from the joy of pushing out the Nazis (with the assistance of the Soviet Union) to the dehumanization and sadness of Communist rule. There are so many characters who pass in and out of focus, several of them dying, all of them disillusioned. It's sort of like a Gogol novel, except much, much more emotionally gutting. Highly recommended.
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