In the history of the new waves, the Czechoslovakian outburst rates as one of the prime events—excelling at a still-fresh sardonic naturalism and moments of intimate lightning—and the most prodigious exporter of talent to Hollywood. But most of what we saw as "Czech" was just that; as the new Walter Reade series of Slovak films points out, the nation nursed two distinct national voices, and while the Bohemian cadre churned out humanistic festival masterworks, their easterly counterparts tromped along in their own, relatively disreputable fashion. The reckless, felonious bastard brother to the Czech films we know from the post-Stalinist spring of the late '50s, Slovak cinema does seem to have had its own gutbucket priorities and barrelhouse odor, with the notable exception of Ján Kadár... More >>>