The Ear (Blu-ray)

Karel Kachyna’s darkly satirical political-noir

In Karel Kachyna’s darkly satirical political-noir, a high-ranking Communist official and his wife begin to suspect that their home has been put under surveillance by the Party. Over one night, the growing tension exposes a bitter fault-line in their relationship, feeding an intense atmosphere of paranoia and dread.

Daring to address the taboos of the Stalinist era, The Ear was banned soon after completion, and remained unseen until the fall of Communism twenty years later. Combining a not-so-private portrait of a disintegrating marriage with a searing blackly-comic critique of totalitarianism, this landmark film is an extraordinary indictment of life under an oppressive system.