Of the films that were recently offered as part of the
2018 Czech That Film tour, I've seen and reviewed the following:
Barefoot (orig. Po Strništi Bos) [2018] [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]* (Screenplay and directed by
Jan Svěrák [IMDb] [CSFD] [FDB]*, based on the
book [GR]*
[DBK]*
[WCat]* by
Zdeněk Svěrák [en.wikip] [cs,wikip]*
[GR]*
[WCat]*
[IMDb] [CSFD]* a quite classic Svěrák production (Zdeněk and Jan are father and son) that North American viewers would recognize as a cross between Neil Simon (
Brighton Beach Memoirs [1986],
Biloxi Blues [1988]) and Steven Spielberg, tells the tale of a Czech kid named Eda (played by
Alois (Lojzik) Gréc [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]) growing-up during the era of Nazi "
Protectorate" occupation.
The bitter-sweet genius of the film (and it is excellent) is that is beautifully portrays the "normal" dimension of growing up in what would have been a quite average family -- Eda has some issues with his dad (played by
Ondřej Vetchý [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]), and Eda's family is dealing (not particularly well...) with the consequences of some definite, but all things considered tragic though they may be, quite "normal" (recognizable) "demons" in the family's recent past -- BUT SUPERIMPOSED ON TOP of those "NORMAL PROBLEMS" are of course the effects of living under (here Nazi) Occupation.
So, mad at his dad for unfairly punishing him "in front of everybody" at a Prague neighborhood picnic / block party, 9-10 year old Eda lashes back yelling:
"Well, you (dad) listen to (clandestine) BBC radio ..." Well ... a few days later, the apartment manager discretely tells Eda's family that it'd "probably be a good idea" for the family to "leave Prague" and move back to the village where the family was originally from ... where the rest of the story plays out.
Then the story makes mention of some of the _national demons_ that came with the closing stages of the war: (1) the post-war expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia (in vengeance for the Sudeten Germans' forcing the collapse of pre-WW II thoroughly democratic Czechoslovakia and bringing the era of Nazi occupation onto the Czechs), (2) the somewhat senseless Czech uprising against the Nazis in the closing days of the war, that only resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of poorly armed and largely unorganized Czechs (ironically almost as many Czechs died in those chaotic closing days of the war as would have died if the Czechs had fought the Germans under much better / much more organized terms in 1938 during the Sudeten Crisis) and still did not prevent subsequent Soviet domination of the country for the decades following and (3) the largely suppressed truth (certainly during the Communist Era) that much of the Czech nation, including the capital Prague was actually liberated by the
Vlasovites [en.wikip] [cs.wikip]* an army of Russian defectors who did fight on the side of Nazi Germany for much of the war but always much more _against Stalin_ rather than "for Hitler." (For his part, Hitler did not invade the Soviet Union to "liberate it" from Stalin, he invaded the Soviet Union to steal its land and resources and to enslave its people(s). So the Nazis never really took seriously what General Vlasov was offering them:
"Just arm us and let us take care of Stalin / Soviet Communism ourselves.") This is the first time that I've certainly seen the
Vlasovites mentioned in a Czech film even though most Czechs know well who actually liberated their country from the Nazis -- the Americans
(Patton's 3rd Army) from the West (all the way up to Plzeň) and the
Vlasovites from the East. The Soviet army entered Prague only after the
Vlasovites (and Czech patriots) did most / all of the fighting for them...
Anyway, a lovely film about growing up in a _very average family_ living in the midst of "Great Events" happening all around them -- 4 Stars.
Milada [2017] [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by
David Mrnka [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]* along with
Robert Conant [IMDB] [CSFD]*) a bio-pic (actually available on Netflix) about Czech Protestant / humanitarian / feminist / social democrat
Milada Horáková [en.wikip] [cs.wikip]* (played in the film by
Ayelet Zurer [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) who advocated for the Czechs to the English (to no serious avail) in the time leading up to the 1938 Sudeten Crisis, spent most of Nazi occupation in jail and then was arrested / jailed once more and _executed_ in 1950 by the post-War Czechoslovak Communist Regime for "anti-state activities" (she and her husband were using her position in a Czechoslovak child welfare agency to help those persecuted by the Communist regime flee the country) despite appeals by the
World Council of Churches,
Eleanor Roosevelt,
Albert Einstein,
Winston Churchill,
Jean-Paul Sartre and
Bertrand Russell among others for clemency on her behalf. To many Czechs, remains
Horáková emblematic of a true martyr, honestly on the level of a Czech female / feminist
Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- one who dedicated _her entire life_ to try to do what is right and ended up getting condemned / _murdered_ for it in the worst possible _staged_ Stalin Era show trial fashion. -- 4 Stars
Ice Mother (orig. Bába z Ledu) [2017] [IMDB] [CSFD]*[FDB]* (written and directed by
Bodhan Sláma [IMDB] [CSFD]*) is a contemporary family dramedy focused on the family's matriarch/grandmother (played wonderfully by
Zuzana Kronerová [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) who a widow at 60-something years of age had reason to be disappointed with how her two sons Ivan (played by
Václav Neužil [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) and Petr (played by
Marek Daniel [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) turned out.
Though both were married, both had kids, neither had turned-out to be particularly solid. Instead, were rather shifty, Ivan perhaps a little better off than Petr, but both were ultimately hovering around her just waiting to pounce on her house as soon as she either died or decided to move to a retirement community. In the meantime, neither particularly cared that grandma was expected to cook big meals for their two families on Sunday (they simply called it "tradition") or that since grandma didn't have a lot of money -- no doubt spending a good part of it on these Sunday dinners for them and their families -- so she had to keep her house rather "cold" (part of the reason for the film's title) to keep her bills manageable. When they started to complain
"Gee ma, you seem to be keeping the house rather cold this winter..." she started to understand their complaints in a different way: that her two grown sons were simply
zhýčkaný (spoiled).
Indeed concurrently she comes to be rather fascinated with a group of senior citizen
otužilci (or North American parlance "polar bear club" of swimmers) who would have weekly races in the seemingly ice cold Vltava and Labe Rivers near Prague. What's going on here? Were her sons really "soft" or was she (and other seniors with not particularly good pensions making "lemonade" out of the "lemons" that they were being given in life? Or was it both?
It all makes for an interesting commentary on contemporary life in post-Communist Central Europe where seniors with poor pensions are seen turning the hardships that they face -- having not enough money to keep their homes warm -- into virtue (Look at how tough in my old age I am? I can swim across an ice cold river in winter because "cold" has no effect on me anymore...). Anyway, it's one thing to be tough. It's another because one's forced to be because one could not make ends meet otherwise. But certainly a very interesting / challenging film -- 3 1/2 Stars.
Masaryk [2017] [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by
Julius Ševčík [IMDB] [CSFD]*
[FDB]* along with
Petr Kolečko [IMDB] [CSFD]* and
Alex Königsmark [IMDB] [CSFD]*) focuses on two critical years (1938-1939) in the life of
Jan Masaryk [en.wikip] [cs.wikip]* (played in the film by
Karel Roden [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) the son of the modern Czechoslovakia's founder
T.G. Masaryk [en.wikip] [cs.wikip]*
It's a generally sympathetic, humanizing portrayal of a man, basically a "Son of Moses," during one of the worst possible times of both his life and the life of his country. His revered father had died the year before and he himself was serving as a critical ambassador (to Britain) in his father's successor's
Edvard Beneš' [en.wikip] [cs.wikip]* (played in the film by
Oldřich Kaiser [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) administration, while the whole project of his father's life, the creation / success of a modern-independent-democratic Czechoslovakia was under mortal threat of Nazi aggression.
But Britain was under the hapless / didn't have a clue / perhaps would have been _a great_ (or even then just a mediocre but harmless) British Prime Minister a couple of generations back under Queen Victoria, but this was the late 1930s (!),
Neville Chamberlain [en.wikip] (played in the film by
Paul Nicholas [IMDb]). And in Chamberlain's and much of England's still race / class tinged eyes, the Czechs were basically "Great Nation" Germany's Irish and the Sudeten Germans were the Anglophilic Protestants of Northern Ireland. If Ireland could be divided to "keep the peace" (and keep the North Ireland's Protestants "protected" from being subjected to "barbaric" Irish Catholic rule) why couldn't the Sudeten Germans be allowed to be "protected" from (lower-race
"a nation about which we know nothing") Czech (Slavic) rule? Again, in Victorian England, that would have made total sense, 'cept THE DEMOCRATS HERE WERE THE CZECHS and the Nazis were the thugs, something that Churchill, for instance, understood immediately but alas was not yet being heard.
In any case,
Jan Masaryk FAILED to convince
Chamberlain [en.wikip] and the vast majority of the British political elite of the time to stand by the Czechs' in their hour of need and ... apparently some weeks after the Czechs under true _gangster style duress_, acceded to the British-French-German-Italian signed Munich Pact by handing over Czechoslovakia's Sudeten territories (and actually much more) to Hitler's Germany,
Jan Masaryk, having resigned his post as Ambassador to Britain, he admitted himself into _a psychiatric sanitarium_ in Vineland, New Jersey in the United States for convalescence / treatment. (Here the Reader may wonder, WHY in the U.S.? Well Jan Masaryk's mother, his sainted father's wife,
Charlotte Garrigue, was actually American).
Much of the film takes place during this period of convalescence. It's certainly the most controversial aspect of this film. I certainly _did not know_ that he had done this, BUT I WOULD TOTALLY UNDERSTAND. After all, here again was "the son of a Moses" who's just watched the country that his father had created, a country that he himself tried as hard as he could to defend be dismembered again by the Great Powers ("the Egyptians") of his time. It's enough to drive one almost to suicide, and ...
Actually 10 years later, after the whole drama of World War II was over BUT THE SAME STORY PLAYED OUT AGAIN for poor Czechoslovakia -- with the Soviet Communists taking over the role of the Hitler's Nazis ...
Jan Masaryk, was found dead, outside his Prague apartment window. Did he jump? Or was he pushed (then by Stalin's
NKVD)? I've always thought that the NKVD pushed him. But this movie offers honestly the possibility that he really could have jumped. And who could have blamed him? -- sigh.
STILL ... with a new cloud of Evil (Putin) on our horizon, it's possible that this _very_ anti-English (and
Jan Masaryk "had his problems") film _could be_ some sort of a Putin-Russia inspired piece of propaganda as well. One would have to look more deeply into where the inspiration and financing for this film came. Until then -- 2 1/2 Stars.
Gangster Ka: Afričan [2015] [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*(screenplay and directed by
Jan Pachl [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*, based on the
book [DBK]* by
Jaroslav Kmenta [cs.wikip] [GR] [DBK]*) continues the story of a fictionalized contemporary Czech gangster named Radim Kraviec aka Káčko or simply as in the film's title Ká (played by
Hynek Čermák [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) whose person and story is largely based on the now South Africa residing fugitive Czech swindler-turned-gangster
Radovan Krejčíř [en.wikip] [cs.wikip]*).
Part One of the story played in the States as part of the 2016 Czech that Film Tour.
Said
Part One of the story ended with Radim and Dardan (played by
Predrag Bjelac [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) his enforcer / right-hand-man having successfully fled the Czech Republic one step ahead of law and resurfacing in the
Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean, near Madagascar, off the coast of East / Southern Africa.
The Seychelles apparently had not extradition treaty with the Czech Republic, so it would have been a pretty good place for Ká to just _crash_ and live-out the rest of his life with his wife Sandra (played by
Vlastina Svátková [IMDb] [CSFD]*
[FDB]*) in safe, luxurious obscurity. Sandra was never accused of any wrong-doing in the CR and hence there was no legal ground to prevent her from leaving the country and eventually flying even to
The Seychelles meet-up with her husband again, which she did some months after he resurfaced and established himself there.
All could have gone so well ... if only Ka would just be able to shut-up and lead a comfortable if _quiet_ life in obscurity, but ... of course he could not. And hence the rest of the story unfolded, with him eventually having to leave
The Seychelles for the (post-Apartheid)
Republic of South Africa, which apparently does have an extradition treaty with the Czech Republic (under certain circumstances) BUT was also the only country that Ka was willing to go to after his sojourn in
The Seychelles did not turn out so well. Did he end up doing better in
South Africa? Well ... guess ... ;-)
The whole story is cautionary tale reminding us that no matter how well we think we have can have things figured out, there's _always something_ that make a life of crime difficult / "not pay."
Quite well done contemporary post-Communist Central/Eastern European crime drama - 3 1/2 Stars
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