Ball Lightning

This comedy matures like wine! The Smoljak-Podskalský duo performed an excellent idea with a massive moving event that will unite people. Thanks to excellent acting performances, all the characters have been able to provide sufficient authenticity, and thanks to the script, the film has a characteristic S+S sense of humor. Gags with Brazilian coffee, directionality and firing control are among the unforgettable moments of Czech comedy creations, as well as the whole of Ball Lightning. (10/02/2004)

Perfect movie for everyone who thinks that kind and yet morbid humor cannot be combined. Smoljak is a brilliant connector. (08/12/2006)

Je regrette d’avoir résisté au film Kulový blesk pendant si longtemps. Un fait qui peut être attribué à mon expérience d’enfant de dix ans, le jour où j’en ai vu dix minutes avant d’éteindre la télé et de conclure que c’était la pire ânerie jamais filmée. Mais aujourd’hui, je le vois d’un autre œil. Abrhám et Hrušínský sont fabuleux et j’apprécie l’humour léger et quelques répliques qui sont désormais gravées dans les annales du cinéma tchèque. (14/03/2012)

Fantastic excursion into the surreal strangeness of normalization thinking. Doctors, engineers, workers, and old grannies move their inferiority complexes from one hole in the wall to another in a "duodecaexchange" organized by a sociopath who constantly hides in war analogies. And in all this bustle there is a constant interruption by an old artist who doesn't really know what's going on around him. Ball Lightning is interesting, among other things, for its not-quite-typical documentary techniques for the time. It observes many events from a distance, as if from the position of an accidental third observer. The camera is often handheld, even in the confined spaces of small apartments, and adapts to the actors, so that they in turn appear distinctive and vital in their characters. The benchmark not only of this film, but of Czech cinema in general, is the scene of the practice move. It has my beloved German-esque semi-crazy chaos with a bunch of comic details. The search for light switches in the corridors, the spatially confusing editing, and the lighting of the scene by a passing elevator is a formal masterpiece of the time and beyond. I noticed that Smoljak, just like as in Run, Waiter, Run!, actually shoots each scene where it is set, even if it is only a prelude to something else. Ječný moves to Nusle, Severin lives in Baba, Jechová under the Charles Bridge, the Knoteks in Malé náměstí, Opatrná at the Nusle steps (we can tell by where he packs her up), etc. Even though the individual scenes have practically no exposition and Prague is portrayed in them like a chaotic anthill, a native can tell that a given scene always takes place in the geographically correct place. Opatrná actually has her wedding at the Nusle town hall, Severin and Radostá drive to Severin's villa from Ječný via Vítězné náměstí, Knotek actually looks at Prague from the attic of his house at the angle from he actually would have looked from the attic of his house, etc. etc. Actually, I wonder if this was common in Czech cinema at the time, perhaps based on the fact that the audience was sensitive to the correct locale, or if it is a downright Smoljakian feature. (14/11/2018)

Another treat by Smoljak & Svěrák showing their comedic genius and bringing a whirlwind of great ideas and memorable lines. Ball Lightning, like the title suggests, just keeps rolling uncontrollably, making everybody around burst out laughing. I do believe that there are people who don’t like the film, which doesn't mean I understand that. :) (26/06/2016)