Czech classic Prince and the Evening Star
With the start of autumn I feel quite nostalgic and may reach more for a DVD that I haven’t seen for a while but I’m sure the quality is good. The film Prince and the Evening Star is one of the Czech classics as well as its director Václav Vorlíček who will never let you down.
The protagonist is a princ Velen. One night, an old king tells him to take care of the kingdome. During that night, Velen marry his three sisters off to the kings of the Moon (Měsíčík), Wind (Větrník) and Sun (Slunečník). Velen himself falls in love with beautiful Večernice who is a sister of Velen’s new brothers-in-law. The old king gets upset with his son who feels offended and decides to leave the kingdome to find his sisters with their husbands as well as the beautiful Večernice. On his way he has to deal with many obstacles - tricky merchants and burglas, but mainly a cruel ruler of miserable weather Mrakomor. This fiend wants to have Večernice for himself. The young prince may appear spoilt but thankfully he abounds with courage, persistence and other virtues that help him in his fights against Mrakomor.
The cast is just one star next to another - Menšík, Šafránková, Brzobohatý, Filipovský... I didn’t find Juraj Ďurdiak as an attractive prince, but the older I get, the more handsome he seems to me. Some of the scenes are like in a horror movie which made me feel very scared when I was little but now I enjoy them very much. The film could be summarized in two sentences: Not every weak old man is magical and some people are capable of murder just because of hatred. If your love tells you to leave their ex in the basement, listen to them.
This magical film was remastered a while ago, but unfortunately only in Czech with Czech subtitles. The old version comes with English subtitles for every region.