From the director of the beloved Three Wishes for Cinderella, Václav Vorlíček’s Who Wants to Kill Jessie? is a delightfully demented, absurdist 1966 comic fantasy that is unlike anything else in the Czech New Wave - and presages the DC and Marvel comic-book franchises by several decades.
Jessie, a comic book heroine, springs into real life after a scientist invents a serum to banish bad dreams. This inadvertent experiment unleashes chaos as Jessie and her comic book compatriots demand - in speech-bubbles - “Freedom for dreams!”.
Co-written by Miloš Macourek (Happy End), Who Wants to Kill Jessie? is a deliriously off-the-wall gem. Exploding with ingenuity and wild ideas, and intertwining real and pop-fantasy worlds, the film audaciously subverts the fledgling superhero genre into a bold piece of political satire, and a daring defence of the unfettered imagination.
Who Wants to Kill Jessie? is presented from a new HD transfer by the Czech National Film Archive. This world premiere, region-free Blu-ray edition includes Directive, a 1955 Václav Vorlíček comic short film, a new and expansive video essay by Michael Brooke on crazy Czech comedies, a Projection Booth commentary and a booklet with new writing by Czech cinema expert Jonathan Owen.
