Back home, and the blog, after a few weeks away, it's time to start thinking about some things about this space from which I could enjoy my vacation, especially for a week that my wife and I spent in Prague.
This city can be disappointing if it is her thinking about the narrow streets of the Golem (the Jewish Quarter are now streets vertebrate Paris a call that starts with a Cartier jewelry) in Prague imagery that extolled the Expressionists (the old town is interesting if you allow it watch the tide of tourists, too, but after all I too was one of them) or, more recently, in an iconography of a city that was under the socialist regime (data: the Museum of Communism is, as indications that the entity provides in its advertising brochure, "behind McDonald's and the Casino) and starred a famous Primavera (Wenceslas Square, the boulevard where he one of the most striking images of the time, today is full of Zaras and other franchises, so the "springs" are now reaching the kind they do in the English Court).
not want to discourage those who want to go because the city is beautiful and even corner stores where tourists are rare, and that's hard in one of the most popular in this regard. There is still the hill (and castle) of Vysehrad, a charming space for its decadence and for hosting a beautiful cemetery (not a paradox) in which spending some time with Dvorak, and Smetana Alphons Mucha, or what's left them. Also, the Vltava and its bridges, its multiple green areas (writing from a city with only one square meter of green area per capita, etc.). etc.
Another attraction that is Prague, and here we enter the field of cinema, is the set of opportunities that have come into contact with activities and items related to the origins of cinema.
1) OPTICAL TOYS
One of the memories that can be brought to Prague a few postcards are playing with stereoscopy, by looking at two images that look similar but with a slight difference in the viewing angle, to be observed each with a different eye, the brain combines them and gives the impression of seeing a single three-dimensional image. These postcards are made up of two photographs, which can be a black and white image of Prague, going back to use old, erotic images, and paper before a viewer-like mask that hides two lenses and is decorated with pictures that remind society of the last years of the nineteenth century.
is not the only illusion. You can also play on the Petrin hill with a mirror maze and a hall of distorting mirrors, similar to that found in some theme parks in our cities. Or stop at one of the windows of the Toy Museum in the city, located within the grounds of the Castle. In this case you can see a charming set a number of gadgets that led in one way or another to the cinema: the magic lantern, a Chinese shadow puppet theater, dioramas, thaumatrope, fenaquistoscopios, zoetrope, Praxinoscope and other gadgets. The museum is sold in some guidebooks as the second largest toy collection in Europe. I do not know if it's true, but at least in this aspect and, of course, in a didactic way of presenting its parts, has nothing to do with the Girona Film Museum and Toy Museum in Figueres, which also have had these days the opportunity to revisit.
Apparently, Prague also hosts a large collection of sealed by the competent in the Technical Museum, but is currently closed to the public.
One of the toys that appear in those collections, here and there, and is present in many of the windows of Prague are
2) PUPPETS: After the bombing of illusion that awakens to see some of the many windows with puppets that invade the city, one can not help but be tempted to buy one. Although one to walk away with something to get by house ornaments, is a delight to get into one room of a store would, have a clear craftsmanship with high prices and for professionals, to wish them all the love in the world.
In this type of shopping, more specialized, you can better understand the rich tradition that the Czech Republic has had this toy, both in the world of animation (see Trnka, Svankmajer and company) and the theater. On the puppets, combined with shadow play, we talked a long time in sealed by the competent in relation to Indonesia. In Prague, but increasingly for tourists, offer superb performances based with puppets, some pure (only them) and others that include, along with numerous other resources, in full theater. This is the case:
3) THE BLACK THEATRE PRAGUE:
guidebooks recommended as a major night out (dinner is served at 18 h, so this starts soon) of go to a black theater performance, recommendation followed by many tourists, including my wife and me. Keep in mind that your price is almost prohibitive for themselves Prague, so it is somewhat focused on tourists, but still very valid to stay with an idea of \u200b\u200bits essence.
This type of theater is called "black" not because they have something to do with African culture (which does not, in principle), but because it relies on a trick with the black protagonist: in front of the parade spectators a series of sets of lights, people of flesh and blood in the air, cut-out pictures or colorful objects that float and move with apparent complete independence, large puppets that seem to have lost the hand that controls them, all mixed with collages of film overlays curtains games, players either flesh or of the famous Czech animation. And background music, of course. Well, it turns out well in front of us actors appear that move around this world amazing, but completely hidden under a black suit, which I found velvet and allies with the darkness of the room to "disappear."
If anyone is curious, you can view a summary (although there are still quite spectacular lighting effects, obtained with the sum of several matches on) in a video posted on youtube, about the show we attended: Aspects of Alice, in the theater Tá Fantastika:
Meanwhile, following this review by the (pre) film in the relation of image and lies, we again be here, with the silent Italian and other issues that I hope will be of interest.
