I Served the King of England

[Gold Trumpet]

As it stands now, this is my selection for both favorite and best of 2008.



That never happens for me, but both realms do explain the great Jirí Menzel. He hasn't been a prolific filmmaker since making his classic, Closely Watched Trains, but I Served the King of England is a crowning work for him. It blends his trademark humor and perceptive filmmaking with a magical and semi epic story. Menzel proves once again that he may be one of the most pleasant filmmakers ever. Every part of this film is appealing and inspires a lot of smiles. And like Closely Watched Trains, it deals with the Nazi take over of Czechslovakia, but old age hasn't tempered Menzel. If his new film is any evidence it means he has become even more daring and comic.

I Served the King of England is a hedonistic musical of filmmaking and comedy. It is about a series of episodes involving the adventures of Jan Díte, a career waiter and purveyor of women and delights. The joke is that he was born small, but it gave him the blood to achieve big things. His main ambition in life is to become a millionaire, but he achieves the goal through many intervals and fantastic little adventures. 

The beginning of the film suggests that the comic episodes will be simple and slight, but the episodes continue to grow in comic outreach and daring. Slowly the story gets more involved in the idiosyncrasies of the protagonist and starts to run with his imagination. He is the narrator of the film and is self involved with his stories so each episode never has a dramatic point like a third source was telling the story, but each story does exist good nuance. 

That is the whole point of Menzel. In his great film, Closely Watched Trains, he filmed the story to an even still so no event or scene would stand above the others (except the last scene, of course). The memory of the scenes as a collective unit is what mattered. It's just in this film Menzel is so much adventurous and daring with his filmmaking. He continues on with an old theme of flattery with women, but Menzel adapts the spirit of Fellini a little bit with making fanciful filmmaking and hyper realistic imagery everywhere in the film.

The beauty of this film is that Menzel isn't just copying Fellini. He's much more quaint with the stylistic touches and keeps his excellent eye for compositional shots. Fellini allowed the camera to dominate an entire set and leave the audience with big impressions, but Menzel is a structured storyteller in keeping the shot on one scene and working with tight specifics in it. This style allows him to pull off some magical shots late into the film when the story takes on the historical ramification of the Nazi invasion. Simple shots of trains filled with Jews in the background are excellent foreground to the tragedy that is coming in the story, but the film never gets too dramatic. It keeps everything within the context of it's tragic comedy twist.

The film wasn't the funniest thing to watch. Only a few scenes really got me to laugh, but most of the times I think the film just wanted me to smile. That I did a lot and really loved every second of the viewing. It's beautiful and I hoped it's seen by more people. In comparison to Closely Watched Trains, the film is more elaborated on in the fantastic and whimsical. Some could say it's overblown, but I consider this film to be a congratulation film for Menzel. Jean Cocteau made a similar film when he made Testament of Orpheus and just let loose with his talents, but Cocteau didn't expand upon his great filmmaking there. In I Served the King of England, Menzel shows new levels of comic flair in his filmmaking that make a lot of sense for his personality.