March 29th: TRAPS (Vera Chytilova, 1998)

A female veterinarian is raped by two men and gets revenge using her medical skills.

Czechoslovakian-born Vera Chytilova attempted to enroll in local film schools, but was rejected multiple times before finally being accepted at the Academy of Performing Arts. After a number of successful shorts and her debut feature Something Different, she had a major breakthrough with the innovative and influential Daisies (1966), which angered Soviet authorities with its anti-establishment message. She was soon banned from filmmaking by the government.

Unlike some of her Czech New Wave contemporaries who fled the oppressive political situation to work in the United States (Milos Forman, Ivan Passer, Jan Nemec), the proud Chytilova remained in virtual stasis until the ban was lifted, her only work coming from ghost-directing commercials. When she was finally free to work again after international pressure, she still faced censorship throughout her career.

Having dabbled in various genres such as social realism, broad comedy, and science fiction, her 1998 project might be her boldest thematic statement. Coming almost a decade after the "Velvet Revolution" separated her country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and brought democracy and free enterprise back, Traps comments on consumerism and its accompanying sexism with biting comedy.

Chytilova came up with the story for Traps with one of her previous writing and acting collaborators, Eva Kacirkova, and wrote the script with a few others, including actors from the film itself. Having previously used her husband Jaroslav Kucera as cinematographer, this time around she leaves the camera duties to their son Stepan, leaning towards a more spontaneous handheld style.

The film played at the London and Venice Film Festivals, winning a special prize at the latter for its notable representation of women. It received several nominations from the national Czech film awards, winning for one of the actors.

Running time is approx. 2 hours.