Vladimír Menšík

With sixteen women to each man, the odds are against Andula in her desperate search for love—that is, until a rakish piano player visits her small factory town and temporarily eases her longings. A tender and humorous look at Andula’s journey, from the first pangs of romance to its inevitable disappointments, LOVES OF A BLONDE immediately became a classic of the Czechoslovak New Wave and earned Milos Forman the first of his Academy Award nominations.

Oliva (Jan Werich), the seer in a small village, tells a class of schoolchildren and their teacher, Robert (Vlastimil Brodský), of a mysterious acrobat and her cat, Mokol. The cat wears sunglasses that, when removed, reveal the true character and feelings of the people around her. Later a traveling circus arrives in the town featuring Mokul the cat, the acrobat and a magician who's a dead ringer for Oliva. The cat's powers delight the children but cause anxiety among the adults.

In a farming village in Czechoslovakia, various citizens deal with the changes that occur in their society over the course of the years following World War II. Among the characters included in this expansive drama are the local organ player, Ocenás (Vlastimil Brodský), and his peasant friends, Jorka (Vladimír Mensík) and Frantisek (Radoslav Brzobohatý), who witness and participate in shifting political alliances as their country transforms into a communist state.