That's the thing, to amuse the nation in its spare time.
One of the touchstones of the Czech New Wave is the omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, based on the stories of Bohumil Hrabal, who co-wrote Jiri Menzel's Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains. Made in 1966, Pearls is broken up into five parts, with each one tackled by a different director. The opener is Menzel's "Mr. Baltazar's Death," in which a motorcycle-obsessed husband and wife (Ferdinand Kruta and Pavla Marsálková) head to the track to take in a race and trade reminiscences with a crippled accident connoisseur (Alois Vachek). Strangely enough, when the race finally begins it is shot in such a way that it has a rather lyrical beauty -- until the fatal accident that gives the segment its title, that is. That's followed by "The Impostors," directed by Jan Nemec, in which a hospitalized journalist (Frantisek Havel) and operetta soloist (Milos Cirnácty) trade stories of their glory days, which we discover weren't as glorious as they make out.
After the impostors have been exposed, the somber black and white gives way to brilliant color for Evald Schorm's "The House of Joy," in which an eccentric painter and self-proclaimed goat killer (Václav Zák) is visited by a pair of pushy insurance agents (Ivan Vyskocil and Antonin Pokorny) who are upbraided by his mother (Josefa Pechlátová). Then Daisies director Vera Chytilová helms "The Restaurant the World," which throws together such disparate elements as the body of a dead girl found in a restaurant kitchen, a crowd clamoring to get inside after the police are called, a young bride (Vera Mrázková) whose raucous wedding celebration is put on hold when the groom is arrested, and a factory worker/artist (Vladimír Boudník) whose fiancée has gone missing. And bringing up the rear is "Romance," directed by Jaromil Jires, which charts the accelerated courtship of a timid plumber's assistant (Vyskocil again) and a very forward gypsy girl (Dana Valtová). Hardly a recipe for longevity, but the young always do seem to be a hurry.