criterionforum.org

What an astonishing rediscovery Juraj Jakubisko’s Birds, Orphans and Fools is!

"Filled with dazzling, hallucinatory images but suppressed until the Velvet Revolution unlocked the vaults, this is another extraordinary rediscovery of Slovak cinema"

"Instantly sweeps the audience along with a liberated camera that plunges joyfully into the film’s carnivalesque world... Invites comparison with French New Wave masterpieces: its ménage à trois recalls Truffaut’s Jules and Jim (1962), but its stylistic virtuosity and affinity for youth culture makes it closer in spirit to Godard’s Breathless (1960). Jakubisko has a talent all his own when it comes to integrating the contemporary hippie zeitgeist into the traditional Slovak countryside"

"Everywhere is the centre of the universe, and that is the essence of cinema like Birds, Orphans and Fools; and why it must be rediscovered"

"It's one of the unsung great movies of counter-culture cinema, and a great piece of revolutionary film-making. Essential viewing"

feihong wrote:I'm getting excited about this one! The Slovakian disc is non-anamorphic, so the upgrade will probably be quite worth it. this movie left quite an impression on me both times I have watched it.

"A still intoxicating bolt of New Wave energy... a chaotic mesh of dream logic and playful subversion accomplished with a feel of documentary riskiness... A luscious restored print"

"Recommended for anyone with a taste for volatile, adventurous cinema in its purest form"