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Despite this, the audience liked the 1968 fairy tale from the workshop of director Bořivoj Zeman, and it is still one of the most popular fairy tales ever. Popularity was also due to the songs, the slightly comic central couple Vondráčková and Neckář and other actors full of famous names.
The madly sad princess was a modern fairy tale for its time, and the characters of young people bore characteristics characteristic of the youth of that time. The story was based, for example, on the disputes between parents and children.
Even fairy tales experienced modernization
In the 1950s and early 1960s, fairy tales were among the most popular film genres in our country. But then the audience’s tastes began to change and new fairy tales began to be spun much less. That is why The Crazy Sad Princess contains a whole range of modern elements that should interest the audience and bring the fairy-tale heroes and their problems closer to the current generation. Even the vocabulary of the main characters approached the young generation, and popular singers were supposed to be an attraction for visiting the cinema.
Bořivoj Zeman although it partially deviated from the ageless classics, such as The Proud Princess or Once Upon a King, the audience was still promised a nice movie experience from the fairy tale. They got that one too.
A pair of young people in love wants to decide their own destinies and defies the dictates of the time in various ways, the established customs that they consider a survival, and the demands of their parents who want to line up their lives. Václav and Helena, just like Krasomila and Miroslav (Proud Princess) a few years before them, want to make their own way of life. Although Václav and Helena are stubborn, they unknowingly fulfill the rulers’ plans. However, they feel that they have done something important for their future.
Fun courtship of young people, classic flirting hidden behind bickering and easy-to-remember pop songs – it was exactly enough to make people like the fairy tale and go to the cinema to see it. In addition, the secondary storyline offered the audience a nice dose of scheming on a royal level and a number of great actors, such as Bohuš Záhorský and Jaroslav Marvan. It didn’t matter at all that in the fairy tale the classic clash of good and evil was replaced by a battle of generations.
The beautiful castle in Blatná presented its interiors
In addition to the starvation chamber and torture chamber built in Barrandov’s studios, the fairy tale also offered exteriors filmed in Bojnice in Slovakia and beautiful castle interiors of Blatná castle. The music was composed by the brilliant Jan Hammer, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia immediately after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops. This made the fate of the fairy tale a little more complicated. The censors didn’t like some of the statements, which the observant viewer could explain in his own way.
Criticism did not deter viewers
However, even the reviewers of the time did not spare criticism. They described the script as leaky and incomplete, the dramaturgy as stiff and awkward, and the plot as simple-minded. Strangely enough, most critics agreed that the movie would be liked by the audience. It is a shining example of the fact that it was not made for the entertainment of the actors or film awards, but for the audience.
Together with Zeman’s other films, the fairy tale is included in the golden fund of Czech fairy tales, and almost three million viewers went to the cinema for its premiere.
If the weather doesn’t work out for you on May 1st, you can have a peaceful day in the warmth of your home with a fairy tale that will be on offer on ČT1 in the early evening.
