The Listening Part

[setsuled]

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One sign you might be living in a communist country is that you're under constant surveillance. This is the problem faced by a married couple in 1969's The Ear (Ucho). Haunting, expressionistic cinematography captures two terrific performances as we watch the two characters whose fraught private lives are invaded by unseen men.

Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohaty) is a prominent official in his country's communist party. He and his gregarious, hard drinking wife, Anna (Jirina Bohdalova), attend a lavish party where Ludvik learns that a colleague has fallen out of good standing with the regime and has therefore fallen out of the world. Whatever mysterious offense this colleague was deemed guilty of is never clear but other men in his circle are also being disappeared, naturally causing Ludvik to worry. As he and his wife head home, a series of little clues tell them something's not quite right. Their chauffeur has been swapped out for a man they've never seen before. At the gate of their home, they find neither of them is in possession of the house keys. Ludvik climbs the fence before Anna discovers the gate is unlocked. The power is out in their home even though it's not out in their neighbour's house.

Ludvik starts flushing documents down the toilet in a panic while Anna starts drinking straight from a bottle of vodka, laughing and griping. They both feel relatively sure there's no listening device in their bathroom, because that's what they've been told. Of course, it would be useful for those conducting the surveillance to give them the impression that there is a room which is not being surveilled.

The Ear was banned in its home country of Czechoslovakia until 1990 when the Soviet Union lost control of the country. It's now available on The Criterion Channel.