Jaroslav Papousek collaborated as scriptwriter on some of the great Czech comedies-those by Milos Forman and Ivan Passer-and the opening sequence of The Most Beautiful Age reveals the extent of his influence: it is an incomparable bit of dialogue in which a group of elderly gentlemen-pensioners who spend their days hanging around an art studio in hopes of being selected as artists' models-discuss their love lives, which are roughly divided into the "tomcats" and the "stallions." Papousek's film is a meditation on age-old, middle, and young-but it is more tender toward the grandfathers, in their rage against the dying of the light, than was The Firemen's Ball. (His patriarchs also have better memories: "They? Who are They? We are They!") On the other hand, The Most Beautiful Age digs hilariously at the sexual (sex-role) machinations of youth, and the frustrations of middle age. A veritable panorama of Czech life opens up within the unpreposessing context of a class of beginning sculptors, who freely interpret the likenesses of some unlikely models. These include a shy young mother rebelling against the confines of an old-fashioned spouse and a thoroughly modern flat; and a stout prole posing as a wounded soldier shouting, inexplicably, "Hurrah!" The lead players and familiar faces from Loves of a Blonde, Black Peter and The Firemen's Ball reappear here, in fine form.