The Cinema of Central Europe (24 Frames) Paperback – May 10, 2004

This is an excellent collection of articles on select films from Eastern European cinematic history. The Product Description lists some of the directors discussed, but it's probably more helpful to American readers to know that the book covers such films as "Closely Observed Trains" (Menzel), "Knife in the Water" (Polanski), "A Shop on the High Street" (Kadar and Klos, often called "A Shop on Main Street"), "Love" (Makk), "The Round-Up" (Jancso), "Ashes and Diamonds" (Wajda), and many other Hungarian, Czechoslovakian, and Polish classics, plus a handful of films produced in (or co-produced with) other countries. The films discussed date from the early days of cinema to 1996's "Bolshe Vita" (Fekete). Fabri's "Merry-Go-Round" is an odd exclusion, but the book does contain an article on his underrated 1954 film "Fourteen Lives Were Saved." It isn't all beginner stuff; some of the articles get quite heavy on film theory and difficult jargon. Nonetheless, on the whole, the book is a wonderfully interesting introduction to a fabulous group of films and filmmakers from a part of the film world that is not sufficiently appreciated here in the West. Like most of the publications in the '24 Frames' series, a very worthy purchase for cineastes.