Ivan Passer completed only one feature film before the changing political climate forced him out of Czechoslovakia, but this 1965 gem stands as one of the finest works of the short-lived Czech New Wave. A successful symphony musician comes to a small town to visit an old school friend, who has settled into teaching music at the local academy and playing an occasional funeral. Out of these drab elements, Passer has forged something funny and rare: a genuine comedy of melancholy—a gray comedy.