Oil Lamps (15) |Home Ents Review

A lavish and decadent costume drama that looks like a series of Manet paintings, Oil Lamps brings a healthy dose of carnival, cynicism and disease to the genre. 

Stepa (Janzurová) is a vivacious woman of 30, still living with her rich parents, still looking for a husband, feeling slightly ‘left on the shelf’.  

Cousin Pavel (Cepek) catches her eye. Ex-military and debauched, he still cuts a dash in his uniform. His father and brother run a farm that has seen better times and they’d love him to ‘settle down’ with Stepa and get their hands on her dowry. 

Stepa hears about Pavel’s womanising but is prepared to forgive: at least it means their married sex life will be fun! But on the wedding night, Pavel reveals that he has syphilis and will not consummate the marriage – while of course expecting her to hand over her parents’ money and look after him as paralysis and insanity kick in.

This isn’t quite a feelgood movie – looking back at the plot, nothing turns out well! – but the kinetic, close-up camera work, the wonderful colours and the great production design make it a dark and burnished fever dream from start to finish. The film feels utterly fin de siècle with its tale of disease hidden at the heart of life: a paradox encapsulated in the contrast between Stepa’s full, life-affirming, toothy grin and Pavel’s embarrassed, insane giggling. 

The marital psychodrama plays to the tune of the carnivalesque proceedings of a local theatrical group, with whom the unmarried Stepa cavorts. Her dull and bigoted, bourgeois parents and Pavel’s rude-mannered and mud-spattered rural folk provide more intriguing and sometimes jaw-dropping backdrop to the main drama. 

Special features include: 

• HD transfer of the new 4K restoration by the Czech National Film Archive
• Projection Booth commentary with film historians Mike White, Kat Ellinger and Jonathan Owen
• Conversation on a Train (Rozhovor ve vlaku, 1947): A Czech public information short film on the perils of alcohol and STDs
• Booklet featuring a new essay by author and Czech cinema expert Peter Hames

Oil Lamps is out on Blu-ray from Second Run on 28 April 2025.