Happy End — Happy End( Blu Ray)
Happy End (aka Šťastný Konec) is a late 60’s Czech dark comedy regarding a man's life moving backwards from his execution. It’s a wonderfully unbalancing, at points witty & clever film- which really gets the grey matter going, both in its structure and spell-binding use of backwards filming. Here from Second Run is a new region-free Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring a 4k scan of the picture, a commentary track, and a few other things.
Happy End appeared in the year 1967- though you wouldn’t think it, as it is captured in slightly yellowed black & white, nodding back to the days of silent cinema- though the film does have spoken dialogue. It was directed/ co-written by Pelhrimov, Czech Republic-born Oldrich Lipský. He had twenty-five credits to his name- these went from travelling circus set comedy Cirkus Bude (1954), to sci-fi comedy The Man from the First Century(1962) which regards a workman sent to the future. He helmed an early example of Steampunk with the fantasy comedy The Mysterious Castle In The Carpathians (1981), and family adventure comedy The Three Veterans (1984).
The film opens with credits showing a man's face slowly being uncovered as the buoyant & playful score plays. We then see the man’s head, with a voiceover talking about how he was born- he winks, and then the camera pans back to show he is just a head, we then get backwards filming as the head is picked up placed below a guillotine, as the blade goes up & the head re-attaches to the body.
As we rapidly go back through the man's recent past, we find out his name is Bedrich Frydrych (Vladimír Mensík), he works as a butcher and is accused of murdering his wife & her lover. And that is all I can give away about the plot, otherwise, I’ll really spoil the dark humour & wonder of the running backwards story- with our narrator believing he was born with his death.
Mensík is excellent as our protagonist- looking rather dapper with his neat moustache, having an often mischievous look in his eye, and a generally good balance between pathos & humour. The rest of the small cast is also well placed/ good.
As mentioned earlier the is captured in a yellowed black & white- with the use of both standard filming (with people going backwards), and general backward shooting. You have to focus/ concentrate on the dialogue- to make sense of the story, as well as pick up the wonderful witty moments.
The film runs at the seventy-two-minute mark- and really, it’s just right at this length, as the film tells its story, lightly challenges the viewer, and of course, entertains/ darkly amuses. Happy End is a one-off/ distinctive film.
Moving onto this new Blu-Ray. We get a new 4k scan of the film, and this looks good/well-defined. The only slight issue here is the subtitles- as at points these get lost in the off-white of the film stock, so I did have to rewind on a few occasions/ pause- so I think bright yellow subs may have been better, though it only affects say 10% to 15% of the film.
Moving onto the extras side of things, we have a commentary track from The Projection Booth featuring Mike White, Kat Ellinger and Ben Buckingham. They begin by talking them about when they first saw the film, and what they felt about it. They chat about how the film rather messes with one's reality, and how it rather overlaps genres/ film styles. We get talk about the early subtitled version of the picture, and quibble about the film's runtime- wondering if a longer cut exists somewhere. They discuss the finality of the guillotine, and the bizarreness of the putting back together of the body scene- which is both funny & rather disturbing. They talk about the expressiveness of lead actor Vladimír Mensík, and mention other notable films he appeared in. Later on, they talk about how elements of fairy tales appear in Czech film, the longevity of Czech directors, and of course much more. As always with The Projection Booth is a nicely chatty & informative track- with much worth to it. Otherwise, we have Cerise Howard on ‘Happy End’ (37. 45) which is a visual essay from film critic and Program Director of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival. She begins by talking about how the film isn’t really known very well in its home country. Moving on she talks about the film, its attention to detail, and its title which apparently isn’t very Czech. She talks about other examples of backwards film storytelling, and more. Again, this is well worth a play.
The disc comes presented with a twenty-page inlay booklet. This features a substantial new essay by writer and commentator Jonathan Owen, stills and full credits.
Happy End is a very one-off creation and will appeal to those who enjoy quirky & macabre dark comedies. This new region-free release of the film takes in a well-defined scan and a good selection of worthy extras.