[sbgctsa]

I watched Jiri Menzel's adaptation of I Served The King Of England yesterday. Not a bad film at all, it stays (for the most part) very faithful to the book and manages to capture both Hrabal's bawdy humour - and it is very funny - and his more bitter observations. Some really good performances as well. Unfortunately, Menzel is a little too fond of voice-overs, and while the cinematography is simply beautiful, that becomes a bit of a problem when Menzel starts fetishizing naked women as much as his main character does. I'm not entirely sure he tied together the actions of young Dite and the philosophies of old Dite as well as he might have, either. But hey, it works, and it's worth a watch, even if it's not nearly as good as the book.