Oil Lamps

The works of writer Jaroslav Havlíček have inspired Czech filmmakers several times. The most famous Havlíček adaptation, however, remains the psychological drama OIL LAMPS. It is based on the novel of the same name, which was first published in 1935 under the title Arid Desires and in a revised form in 1944. The film was made in 1971 from a screenplay by Lubor Dohnal, Václav Šašek, and Juraj Herz, who also directed it. The filmmaker, who dazzled in the 1960s with his excellent drama THE CREMATOR (1968), conceived OIL LAMPS as an expressive testimony to a woman‘s thwarted desire. Set in the early twentieth century, the protagonist of the narrative is the wealthy thirty-year-old Štěpa Kiliánová, who, because of her single-mindedness in a small-town environment, finds it difficult to find a groom on her social level. She eventually marries her worldly cousin Pavel, whom she naively admires, even though she knows he is only interested in her dowry. It is only after the wedding that the woman discovers that Paul suffers from a malignant venereal disease. Not only can she not have the children she wants with him, but she must also patiently endure her husband‘s physical and mental decline. In the role of Štěpa, the then thirty-year-old Iva Janžurová gave one of the performances of her life. The actress was matched by Petr Čepek, who took on the role of Pavel as an impressive study of the devastation of conquering, elegant masculinity.