Even though Loves of a Blonde has a rightful place as one of the defining works of the Czechoslovak New Wave, a cursory comparison of this film to others associated with that movement makes it quite obvious that its director Milos Forman was destined for much broader commercial success than any of his peers ever achieved. It's clearly a work of its era, incorporating the peculiar social dynamics of a nation's grudging resignation to absurd mismanagement by a centralized government - and the cynical bemusement such conditions produce - that runs through the titles found in Pearls of the Czech New Wave, an Eclipse Series box that tracks its progress over the few years that this scene flourished before the regime cracked down on artistic freedom of expression. But where directors like Chytilova, Menzel, Jires, Nemec and Schorm confronted viewers with highly individualistic, often eccentric styles of film making, Forman shows himself to be a very accessible, direct and winsome story teller in this simple tale of youthful lusts and emotions in full bloom, leading to comically poignant moments that most of us can relate to and laugh at in awkward but wistful recognition of our former, naive selves. The freshness and vitality of this movie holds up remarkably well nearly 50 years after it was first turned loose on an audience that was quick to appreciate it so fully that it became a classic of sorts - beloved enough to warrant not only a Criterion release back in 2002 but also a reissue as part of their short-lived Essential Art House line of DVDs a few years later.
I call it a "simple tale" but that's not to be confused with simplistic by any means. The story is mostly told from the perspective of Andula, a teenager who's left home for reasons not clearly explained but apparently derived from problems with her mother that led to self-injuring behavior (she's a cutter, basically.) This trouble has led to her placement in a state-operated girls dormitory, where she lives with dozens if not hundreds of other unfortunates like herself, who are consigned by the system to work in a shoe factory in the northern part of Czechoslovakia. We first meet Andula as she's laying in bed with another girl roughly her age - it's not clear if this is a sister or a friend - they're just two teens talking about boys, with Andula in the position of advantage as she seems to be a bit more experienced in this sort of thing than her peer. What she has to say about her amorous encounter doesn't really amount to much, but it's important for us to recognize that as loves and lovers go, this particular blonde doesn't really know all that much. That clarification is helpful, as the title most likely alludes to adventures much more salacious and sophisticated (at least in the minds of most adults watching it for the first time) than anything that actually transpires on screen.
But just when it dawns upon us that Andula is, most literally, a babe in the woods when it comes to the complexities of romance, Forman whisks us away to a board room where some kind of municipal planning committee of middle-aged men has convened to make the usual obtuse and presumptuous decisions that experience leads us to expect from such gatherings. It seems that the young women who work so diligently in the factory are feeling a bit... unfulfilled. The rigors of the production that the socialist economy expects from them are not sufficiently balanced out by appropriate gratifications at the end of their workday. In short, there aren't enough men around to meet their needs. Organizational efficiency has prevailed to the point that gender-specific segregation is taking its toll on morale. The soldiers are deployed elsewhere - frustration is settling in. A swift remedy is called for, and the brilliant solution is to sponsor a mixer event where boys and girls can get together for a few hours and satisfy that basic convivial urge. (Not that the chaperones would expect or allow more carnal desires to be indulged...)
So with appropriate pomp and ceremony, the production lines are allowed to go quiet for a few hours so that the female workforce can gather at the train station to welcome the new arrivals, hastily summoned for some kind of military training exercise, I suppose. The maneuver only leads to disappointments, as the nubile young women get an eyeful of the portly, balding, most likely married army reservists disembarking from the passenger cars as they answer their call of duty. And though one again might imagine that the horde of fellas would be eager and then some to make the acquaintance of some pretty young women, the more plausible truth is presented to us: a brigade of men who are quite rusty at the art of courtship and wooing and making sexy when the opportunity presents itself.
That whole scene at the dance is quite amusing, especially as the camera wraps up its survey of all the painfully disconcerted faces of people who just don't know what to do with themselves and focuses our attention on three particular men who have their eyes on the three (well, let's face it, two, plus a friend) cute blondes (Andula and two of her chums) sitting at a table, surrounded by clusters of fairly drab and slightly plump brunettes. The men are unquestionably at least twice the age of the girls they're targeting, and their nearly futile pursuit delivers Forman's first masterpiece of comic pacing as the attempted slickness of their moves unravels due to their hilarious ineptitude. They send a bottle of wine to force an introduction, but it gets delivered to the wrong table. They cruelly correct their error, reneging the bottle from the original recipients in favor of the girls sitting right next to them, and then a clumsy attempt to dispose of a suddenly conspicuous wedding ring leads to even more catastrophic bungling. Somehow recovering from all that, these oafish smooth operators go straight to the point, pushing the girls to guzzle their wine and get on with whatever they think is supposed to happen next. It's all quite dismal and charming and flat out funny at the same time as we watch the six of them squirm and writhe through this uncomfortable dilemma that none of them wished for but nevertheless could not avoid.
But Andula, our center of attention (and if not the cleverest, still the most sympathetic character we meet in Loves of a Blonde), has found her exit from all this tension, in the company of Milda, a piano player hired on to provide the night's entertainment. He's a younger man, probably several years Andula's senior but still more appropriate dating material, especially since she's probably as close to an Alpha Female as any of the women in her dorm owing to her good looks and desirability in the eyes of men. We quickly gather the pertinent facts: he's not from around this little village of Zruc where the factory is located; he's a working musician based in the Czech capital Prague, who tours around, taking gigs where he can; he seems to have a well-rehearsed repertoire of banter and methods involving palm reading and self-defense techniques that have proven successful in getting girls to soften up the boundaries of their personal space more abruptly than they ordinarily might have expected; he's not above blatant disclosure and exploitation of his self-pity if it arouses a sense of maternal protection in the woman he's trying to get with. No sooner do we hear him mutter something about "I could get gangrene and die," then Forman cuts away to a very brief hide-and-seek interlude with Anulda's friends as they toy with their grandfatherly pursuers, and a moment later, we're back in the room with Milda and Anulda, where she sits with seeming inevitability, naked on the bed.
And of course that's the moment where the quote atop this essay is uttered, where a young girl cashes in all those lessons about prim and proper morality, spent on a momentary impulse to experience for herself just what all that fuss over sex is really about. It's all quite overwhelming and life changing to her, in that transforming moment - guarded cautions are cast aside, wary mistrust magically melts away into deeply bonded attachment (on her side of the exchange, anyway) and things will never be the same.
From there, it's on to the afterglow, a playful encounter captured in sweet tones, non-exploitive, non-judgmental but brilliantly capturing the hazy sense of euphoric connection that makes these first encounters of erotic enjoyment so memorable and charming.
Of course, for Milda, he's been down this road a few more times (so it seems). In his boyish exuberance and gratitude, he says a few things that his more cautious, careful and clothed self would probably have the self-awareness to bottle up inside. But he hardly gives Anulda a second thought after the morning arrives and its time for them both to get back to work.
The production line sequence, slight as it is, brought to mind a film from more than twenty years later, Aki Kaurismaki's Match Factory Girl, though nothing in Loves of a Blonde plumbs such gloomy depths of despair. Maybe we can chalk that up to differences in temperament (whether between directors or the respective cultures of Finland and Czechoslovakia, or perhaps just two more decades of heavy-handed oppression of the proletariat in eastern Europe.)
That short narrative patch then sets us up for the wonderful finale, in which Andula quite abruptly splits away from her production line/dorm life treadmill (in a sharply edited sequence that frames her departure in bold, almost heroic, perspective). She's made a decision to take up Milda's carelessly proffered pillow talk, seizing upon his vague description of his hometown as if it were a contracted invitation to drop in unannounced in order to claim the prize that's rightfully hers. Of course, the attitude of her approach makes all the difference as to how we in the audience will regard her impulsive quest. Forman once again has us eating out of his hand - there's no scoffing or resentment at Anulda's presumption - she's so sweet and pure and delightful in following the whims of her crush that nothing could seem more natural than for her to pack a suitcase, dig up his address somehow or other and camp out with Milda's parents for the evening waiting for her beau to arrive, certain that he'll be impressed and happy to see her!
That process of waiting for Milda to arrive, as his stupefied parents try to make sense of her motives and background, provokes moments of hearty laughter and, for some of us anyway, pointed recognition. The subject of all their bickering may be fairly unique but the spirit that motivates it is quite common - what makes it profoundly hilarious is just how free and fast the dialog flows, especially after we learn that Milda's parents were about as "regular folks" as it gets, neither of them being professional actors or even people who aspired to such a role. They just fit the part, and Forman deserves a lot of credit for recognizing and realizing their potential to do exactly what they did, especially after Milda staggers home late into the night, recognizes the fix that he's gotten himself in and is ordered to spend the night sleeping in his parents' bed in order to refrain from compounding the scandal even further. I doubt that those scenes will ever cease to make me laugh long and loud.
Loves of a Blonde concludes on a fairly enigmatic note, with Anulda confiding in that same girlfriend that, after leaving Milda's apartment, she still plans to "go back from now on." The melody of Ave Maria, plucked on the same acoustic guitar that strummed a strip-tease lyric set to a Czech equivalent of "Too Much Monkey Business" to open the film, closes us out, wondering what will become of our dear infatuated protagonist. It seems doubtful, at first glance at least, that Milda will give up his bachelor ways and succumb so easily, but it may well be the case that this Anulda is possessed of more grit and determination (for such a naive young thing) than we initially give her credit for. After all, she's a kid who's grown up and managed to survive through a fair (but unspecified) degree of deprivation. She knows her options are limited and the opportunities to radically depart from the lot she's fallen into may never get any better. Whether what she's found with Milda really deserves the honor of being called a "love" is surely up for debate, but don't put it past her to press the issue firmly, shooting her piano player with a fusillade of Cupid's arrows sufficient to keep him banging out his tunes, safely tucked away at home.