The interesting story is funny only in a first quarter of this movie. Then this comedy is more then boring. The actors aren't good, specialy Tomas Hanak is the same as another his movies. Positive is only famous Miroslav Donutil's playing.
3 Reviews
Ingenious and highly provocative plot .....
PimpinAinttEasy19 February 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Dear Vera Chytilová,
I remember catching your film Traps (it was called Traps, Traps and more Traps in India) at the 1998 (or was it 97?) Kochi International Film Festival. The Sreedhar theater was full. Not because Kochi is full of film enthusiasts. But because word had leaked out that your movie had a lot of sex in it.
I remember being profoundly shocked by your film. I had not been exposed to foreign language cinema back in 1998. The plot was quite ingenious - a hitchhiker is raped by two politicians. But after she wakes up, she pretends to not realize that she was raped and takes the two politicians home where she drugs them and chops off their testicles. She flees the scene. The politicians wake up and realize whats happened. They take their testicles back home in an ice bucket and store them in a freezer. But some unsuspecting person fries them up and eats them after he mistakes them for pieces of meat. I remember the whole theater burst out laughing during that scene.
Despite the payback, I remember the film had a rather disturbing end. With the raped hitchhiker walking among cows. But I was thoroughly entertained.
I decided to write this review because I remembered your film today. I will be checking out more films by you since you were quite a prolific Czech filmmaker.
Best Regards, Pimpin.
(7/10)
I remember catching your film Traps (it was called Traps, Traps and more Traps in India) at the 1998 (or was it 97?) Kochi International Film Festival. The Sreedhar theater was full. Not because Kochi is full of film enthusiasts. But because word had leaked out that your movie had a lot of sex in it.
I remember being profoundly shocked by your film. I had not been exposed to foreign language cinema back in 1998. The plot was quite ingenious - a hitchhiker is raped by two politicians. But after she wakes up, she pretends to not realize that she was raped and takes the two politicians home where she drugs them and chops off their testicles. She flees the scene. The politicians wake up and realize whats happened. They take their testicles back home in an ice bucket and store them in a freezer. But some unsuspecting person fries them up and eats them after he mistakes them for pieces of meat. I remember the whole theater burst out laughing during that scene.
Despite the payback, I remember the film had a rather disturbing end. With the raped hitchhiker walking among cows. But I was thoroughly entertained.
I decided to write this review because I remembered your film today. I will be checking out more films by you since you were quite a prolific Czech filmmaker.
Best Regards, Pimpin.
(7/10)
Traps
henry8-313 February 2024
2 different but powerful men take a woman into the woods and rape her. She, feigning amnesia after they knocked her out, invites them to her home for a drink. They agree and she drugs them and then use her veterinary skills to castrate them both. This all takes place in the first half hour, with the rest of the film looking at the impact upon each of them, both dramatically and comedically
This is an often strange mixture of comedy and drama which for the most part works well enough. For example whilst the rape is portrayed very seriously, the short term aftermath of their castration is quite funny, demonstrating the directors skill in merging these unlikely tones together. The difficulty thereafter though is that director Vera Chytilová is determined to pass along quite a few different messages here including about the post communist world in Czechoslovakia run like a boys club and men in general who are pretty much all presented as unpleasant and largely stupid, with woman mostly giggling sex maniacs or grumpy cliched wives. That's fine I suppose but it all ends up in an unsatisfactory, confusing and badly edited climax which for me spoiled the overall film which tries too hard to fit too much in.
This is an often strange mixture of comedy and drama which for the most part works well enough. For example whilst the rape is portrayed very seriously, the short term aftermath of their castration is quite funny, demonstrating the directors skill in merging these unlikely tones together. The difficulty thereafter though is that director Vera Chytilová is determined to pass along quite a few different messages here including about the post communist world in Czechoslovakia run like a boys club and men in general who are pretty much all presented as unpleasant and largely stupid, with woman mostly giggling sex maniacs or grumpy cliched wives. That's fine I suppose but it all ends up in an unsatisfactory, confusing and badly edited climax which for me spoiled the overall film which tries too hard to fit too much in.
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