Wild Bees/Divoké včely (2001)

Thursday / 2nd November 2006 / 20:00

Czech Republic / 2001 / 92 minutes / director: Bohdan Sláma / screenplay: Bohdan Sláma / cinematography: Diviš Marek / editing: Jan Daňhel / music: Miroslav Šimáček / cast: Pavel Liška (Laďa), Tatiana Vilhelmová (Božka), Zdeněk Raušer (Kája), Vanda Hybnerová (Jana), Jaroslav Dušek (game keeper) /

To watch Wild Bees is actually like watching a Czech New Wave film which was never made. It is built on the same principles and what is more, it deliberately relies on them. There are so many echoes and allusions. The raffle on the fire ball reminds us of Forman´s masterpiece The Fireman´s Ball (you cannot possibly think of anything else when you watch a scene where Božka is stealing) and everytime the train passes on the screen, Menzel´s Closely Observed Trains pop into your mind. If you add to this Sláma´s second film Something Like Happiness, there is no doubt that if there is someone who is able to revive the era of great Czech cinema with its specific feeling, it is him.

What strikes you first is the atmosphere. It is so realistic that it actually balances between a boring and a watchable film. The main character of Kája, played by non-actor Zdeněk Raušer, is so bad in his role that after few minutes you actually believe that he is not acting but playing his real self (and you notice that there are only few words in his repertoir which, to be honest, suit him). Luckily the rest of the professional cast save the film. Tatiana Vilhelmová´s performance is brilliant as usual and she proves that her position of one of the greatest actresses in Czech Republic is well deserved. Pavel Liška´s performance of Laďa, a great fan of Michael Jackson, is again one of the actor´s not very clever, attractive, neither lucky characters, with whom you nevertheless fall in love with in the end.

In a sense Wild Bees is a rural version of Ondříček´s Loners. The life in a small village in Moravia has its own problems which range from alcohol addiction (who would have thought that old ladies drink so much?!) and gambling addiction to typical relationship issues. However, one finds out gradually that the setting is not that crusial - whether it is situated in a village or a big town, problems people have are pretty the same.

Štefan Titka

Whisper/Šeptej (1996)

Thursday / 19th October 2006 / 20:00

Czech Republic / 1996 / 82 minutes / director: David Ondříček / screenplay: David Ondříček, Jan Novák, Tomáš Mašín / cinematography: Alexander Šurkala / music: Jan P. Muchow, Colorfactory / editing: Petr Turyna / cast: Tatiana Vilhelmová (Anna), Martin Myšička (Kytka), Jan P. Muchow (Filip), Jan Čechtický (Speedy), Kateřina Winterová (Irma) /

With Whisper David Ondříček started a new trend in Czech cinema. On one hand he returns to the stylistic and thematic means used by the Czech New Wave directors - main characters played by non-actors, personal situations demonstrated through simple, almost trivial dialogues in which the relationships between characters are visible best. On the other hand Whisper introduces a new city aesthetics and values shared by dance music fans. the plot of the film is Nevertheless directly connected with Forman´s 1965 Loves of a Blonde. The main character Anna (Tatiana Vilhelmová) leaves the village and heads to Prague to free herself from the dominance of her father-colonel. Just like the character of Andula in Loves of a Blonde, Anna starts with euphoria brought by life in the city with all its reckless and dandy style, only to realize later that under the surface, reality is quite different.

Anna finds herself in the capital for a couple of days and gradually discovers the pros and cons of the mondaine life of a group of young people, especially of two brothers Speedy and Filip. Filip becomes Anna´s guide in the Babel of free life and showy parties, as well as of personal problems of the young people in Prague.

Whisper opened in 1996 as a promising debut of David Ondříček (the son of Forman´s director of cinematography Miroslav Ondříček) though from a certain point of view it stays somewhere between a film with sovereign generation statement and a film that goes back to the tradition of Czech New Wave inspired by cinéma vérité. The film´s name alludes to something incommunicable, a series of forbidden topics about which people do not talk or about which Czech cinema and young filmmakers were remaining silent at least. In the relationship between a naive and simple-minded Anna and the group of city dandies the question of different values arises - individuality, fight for survival and pleasures stand against Anna´s sincerity, kind-heartedness and altruism.

Ondříček´s debut, though sometimes naive, full of cliché and uneasiness, can be seen as the first manifesto of the new aesthetics of 90s generation of filmmakers - it reflects fascination with dance music (leading male characters are played by members of the bands Ecstasy of St. Theresa and Ohm Square), easiness and "drifting" of the city teenagers, together with emancipation of homosexuals. Key role is played by civil dialogues that touch at crucial feelings and ideas shared by the generation that are nevertheless difficult to express. With this film the so called "Losers´ Films" wave announces itself. Films that later create plot cliché and tend to be shallow sometimes (24, Brouk v hlavě, Cabriolet).

With Whisper Ondříček portrayed the generation of people around twenty. His latter film Loners is a more stylized and more confused image of thirty-something city people with settled habits and values.

Pavel Bednařík

Requiem for a Maiden/Requiem pro panenku (1991)

Thursday / 5th October 2006 / 20:00

Czech Republic / 1991 / 99 minutes / director: Filip Renč / screenplay: Filip Renč, Igor Chaun (based on a report by Josef Klíma) / cinematography: Juraj Fándli / editing: Jan Mattlach / music: Ondřej Soukup / cast: Anna Geislerová (Marika), Barbora Hrzánová (Johanka), Soňa Valentová (Volfová), Eva Holubová (Krocová) /

There are two kinds of films - those that are pleasant and those like Requiem for a Maiden. A film that attacks you and leaves you exhausted and depressed. Requiem tells a story based on real events. After her father´s assault, and due to an administrative mistake, the main character, fourteen-year-old Marika is moved to hospital for mentally affected adolescents. She suffers from post-traumatic shock but from the very start of her stay it is obvious that she does not belong in there. What she sees in the hospital is pure horror, beyond imagination. She encounters every possible means of man´s humiliation. The girl patients are being drugged all the time without considering their actual condition, and handled with unprecedented cruelty. Nobody is responding to Marika´s constant protests against the unbearable situation. However what seemed to be utmost horror is nothing compared to the night which ends it all.

If you think about it, it is quite unusual to start one´s career with this kind of film. On one hand it is brave and undoubtedly courageous to take a script based on a true story and shoot it as your first feature film. On the other hand there are several risks that go hand in hand with such a decision. One of them is the very question of an audience: who would like to watch such a depressive film? Renč´s depiction of true events is realistic, disturbing and scary at the same time. And I would say that the effect is even more scary today than at the time the film was shot. It seems to be not only a depiction of what happened in one hospital for mentally affected adolescents but more like a metaphor of the era as a whole. Frightening in its morbidity and silent accepting of injustice happening in the country. Renč makes this world look as unpleasant as possible, being significantly helped by his collaborators - the director of cinematography Juraj Fándli and composer Ondřej Soukup. And I guarantee you that you will not want this soundtrack to become part of your favourite music collection. The same holds for the film. It is a kind of film that you will always want to forget but that you will actually never be able to. Whether it is good or bad, is up to you to decide.

Štefan Titka