Drifting Clouds Cinema Blog: A Note On Milos Forman's "Talent Competition"

I finally got round to watching Talent Competition, a wonderful drama-documentary about a singing contest, a sort of 1960s Iron Curtain version of Pop Idol. It's a film which is part of my favourite cinematic movement, the Czechslovak New Wave. However, one scene especially piqued me, such that I kept replaying it in order to fully absorb it, and that was a scene in which Vera Kresadlova, one of the contestants, gets up to perform a rock n roll number, which is in contrast to the drab folksy stuff the others had been singing. The song itself was catchy, however, what took me by the scene was Kresadlova, beautiful and charming for sure, but it was her genuine joy at performing the song that did it, and the genuine captivation on the faces of the audience. Truthful joy and captivation in films. We need to see more of it.