A Low-Level Flight (2006)

Filmmaker Jan Sikl explores the tumultuous relationship between a Czech Air Force officer and the Russian woman who loved him though the family's own archival materials in this unusual documentary. Va... read more clav was an ambitious Czech fighter pilot who met and married a beautiful Russian émigré name Tana. Tana was fascinated by her confident, headstrong husband, and when his assignments took him to the USSR, she willingly followed him there. However, Vaclav was also an alcoholic who was living a secret life with another wife and children, and Tana's love for him could not overcome her frustration and betrayal. Tana's daughter provided Sikl with photographs and home movies that documented both the good and bad sides of Tana and Vaclav's relationship, and she narrates Low Level Flight, the story of their lives together. Low Level Flight was the final episode of A Private Century, a series of eight documentaries fashioned by Sikl from the personal archives of eight Czech families. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi