212. Czech directors Jan Kadar’s and Elmar Klos’ film “Touha zvaná Anada” (Adrift) (1971) (former Czechoslovakia): Third film of an important European film trilogy (based on a Hungarian novel by Lajos Zilahy), rarely discussed or appreciated

My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. --Psalms 38:10 ( Epigraph/quote that opens the film, before the titles ) A drift is the third film of a rarely discussed but important trilogy of director Jan Kadar (1918-79) that includes the Oscar-winning The Shop on the Main Street (1966) and The Angel Levine (1970). Elmar Klos was the co-director of two films of the trilogy: The Shop on the Main Street and Adrift. Hence, the trilogy can conveniently be considered as the Jan Kadar spiritual trilogy on human beings’ tendency to lose things dear to them due to their own follies. In all the three films, the male central character is the pivot of the story and a major female figure dies as a result of the male character’s actions. As Kadar was a Jew, the references within the trilogy relate to the Old Testament of the Bible. (In contrast, the wife of the central character is an ardent Roman Catholic, with paintings of Mother Mary over her bed—a contrib...