Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping Explained

Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping
Director:Ladislav Smoljak
Producer:Jan Balzer
Starring:Zdeněk Svěrák
Music:Petr Skoumal
Cinematography:Richard Valenta
Editing:Jiří Brožek
Runtime:81 minutes
Country:Czechoslovakia
Language:Czech

Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping (Czech: '''Jára Cimrman ležící, spící''') is a 1983 Czechoslovak comedy film directed by Ladislav Smoljak. It is a biopic of the fictional Czech national hero Jára Cimrman, who is portrayed by one of his inventors, Zdeněk Svěrák.

The story is framed by an excursion to Liptákov, the (fictional) village where Cimrman allegedly spent the final years of his life. The retrospective passages, which make up most of the film, span Cimrman's whole "known" life, where he interacts with many personalities of Czech and European science and culture in the Belle Époque. A large portion of the film deals with Cimrman's acting as a tutor in the family of Franz Ferdinand d'Este, the heir presumptive of Austria-Hungary. In this role Cimrman is secretly aiming to "split the monarchy".

Cast