I’ve been a little slack in my Foreign Film February watching. It seems like I’m always slack these days in whatever I’ve decided is the movie theme of the month. I still like the idea of the themes, but some days (most days) I like to watch whatever I’m in the mood for.

I do love foreign language films, but they can be difficult to watch. I don’t mean difficult thematically or that the style is obtuse or whatever (though that can be true), butthe act of reading subtitles creates extra work. Normally, I don’t mind that little bit of work, but increasingly my eyes are going bad. I used to have excellent eyesight but as I get older that is less and less true. These days they are dry and tired. That little extra work of reading what I’m watching is sometimes just too much. When I watch a film at the end of a day I want to relax, to rest, not have to give my eyes a workout.

Weekends are better and this is when I watched The Ear. It is a Czechoslovakian film that was made in 1970 but was banned by the Communists until the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. It was part of the Czechoslovakian New Wave, and I realize I don’t think I’ve seen any of those films. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a movie from Czechoslovakia. This is why I love Foreign Film February.

A married couple, Anna (Jirina Bohdalová) and Ludvik (Radoslav Brzobohatý) return home from a political party to find their gate unlocked and their front door open. The power is out and the phone doesn’t work.

Ludvik becomes increasingly convinced he is about to be purged by the government. He is a mid-level bureaucrat and in flashback, we see that his boss and several others were disappeared at the party. His wife, drunk and belligerent, continually speaks loudly about things she ought to keep quiet about.

It is well known by everybody that the government is listening. The omnipresent “Ear” has been placed in various rooms in everybody’s house. Rumors abound about it. They say that they won’t listen to you in the bathroom or the kitchen (but they love to listen to what you do in the bedroom).

They see men standing outside the house across the street. Ludvik begins flushing notes he took at various meetings. Things that might not look good to the new administration. When the toilet clogs he burns them, destroying his toilet seat in the process.

As the night rolls on the tensions increase. As do the cracks in their marriage. It is clear they haven’t been happy in a long time. Anna doesn’t seem to understand how serious it all is. She yells at the ear and continues drinking. Ludvik is convinced he’s going to prison or worse.

Reminiscent of 1984, The Conversation, and even Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Ear is an intense, meticulously crafted bit of paranoia. The stark black-and-white photography increases the fear by not allowing any warmth in. In the flashback sequences, we often get POV shots from Ludvik’s perspective which increases the paranoia as really we’re seeing what he sees from his memory, and he’s increasingly convinced things are as bad as can be.

It ends almost ironically. I won’t spoil it, but it is a slap of reality as to how truly insane totalitarian governments can be.