Boredom in Brno/Nuda v Brně (2003)

Thursday / 7th December 2006 / 20:00

Czech Republic / 2003 / 103 minutes / director: Vladimír Morávek / screenplay: Vladimír Morávek, Jan Budař / cinematography: Diviš Marek / music: Jan Budař / editing: Jiří Brožek / cast: Kateřina Holánová (Olga Šimáková), Jan Budař (Stanislav Pichlík), Miroslav Donutil (Miroslav Norbacher), Martin Pechlát (Jaroslav Pichlík), Jaroslava Pokorná (Miriam Šimáková) /

Boredom in Brno is one of the most curious debuts in contemporary Czech cinema - awarded at several festivals (including five Czech Lions), popular with cinemagoers as well as film critics, written by an actor and shot by a 38-year old film debutant who had a flourishing career in the field of theatre behind himself.

Vladimír Morávek made Boredom in Brno as a personal project, collaborating with actors he knew from his theatre years in Hradec Králové (where a large portion of the film was shot), and interweaving personal experience into the plot. Brno functions as a metaphor of a specific state of mind - a town where time stands still sometimes, where nothing crusial is happening, from where all ambitious people flee to Prague, the cultural mecca of Czech Republic, or dream about it at least. Brno stands for the clash of small and big ambitions in the lives of people, a city with the atmosphere of a small town where after sunset the streets get empty suddenly.

The title of the film also plays with the concept of small and big events in human life - it takes place in one hot and lazy summer day, and the only "big" event is consummated sex between two young people, the main characters Olinka and Standa, who are in love with each other and spend their first night together despite circumstances. With this concept, undermining the significance of "official" history in the lives of ordinary people, Morávek goes back to the poetics of Czech New Wave with its emphasis on interpersonal relationships in the scope of common everyday situations, communication gaps, awkwardness and irony.

Boredom in Brno tries to capture a breaking point in one´s life (sexual initiation) with all its spontaneous comicality, clumsiness and beauty. The structure of the film allows for chance to enter - loosely connected episodes, stones in a mosaic, which intersect in the end, remind us not only of the New Wave films, but also of Jim Jarmusch and his Czech follower Petr Zelenka. As in Zelenka´s films, the characters of Boredom have their peculiarities and suffer from the lack of meaningful communication, friendship, or love. What makes Morávek´s debut special, however, is his ability of critical detachment combined with sympathy for those who are able to make decisions, even if results are different from the expectations.

Veronika Klusáková

Girlie/Děvčátko (2002)

Thursday / 23rd November 2006 / 20:00

Czech Republic / 2002 / 83 minutes / director: Benjamin Tuček / screenplay: Benjamin Tuček / cinematography: Antonín Chundela / editing: Petr Mrkous / music: Ivo Heger / cast: Dorota Nvotová (Emma) , Jana Hubinská (Emma´s mother), Ondřej Vetchý (taxi driver without a taxi), Dana Batulková (Karel´s mother) /

The Girlie is a debut of director and screenwriter Benjamin Tucek, who is better known as assistant director of Saša Gedeon's film, Return of the Idiot (1999), or the screenwriter of Marek Najbrt's Champions (Mistři, 2004, nominated for the Czech Lion award). But this film is not just his personal debut but also a national one - it is the first Czech film shot with a digital camera HDTV (the same one George Lucas used in Star Wars).

17 year-old Ema is the girlie of the title, the main character of the film. She's looking for happiness (a theme frequently used by another Czech director Bohdan Sláma) in the dullness of a housing estate. The gloomy atmosphere of the place is amplified by digital camera shots, making it look even more rough.The way of shooting neon club signs, night underground - all the common things - give you a feeling you see something brand new. But this is not the reason, why Tuček's debut is being compared to Miloš Forman's earliest films (especially Blonde in Love). There are many other aspects than just the character of a young girl, for example a ball or naive views of the youngsters (Karel). While Forman managed to create lively chatacters on the screen, Tuček, despite seeming authencity of the film, didn't. His characters are described in epizodes, as in Zelenka´s Buttoners, thus we gather some information about them in their dialoques, but much remains hidden until the very end. Paradoxically Girlie ends just at the moment we're getting to know the characters better.

The film possesses, besides some limitations, all the qualities of trendy Czech films. The casting is good, though some actors were cast only for their dramatic type, it was shot at attractive places - through the film we can get in touch with the Czech club scene as well as with drugs. Beside its clip aesthetics, the film greatly emphasises its music score. Girlie is ranked among so called "Generation films". However, its appeal to young audiences is more important than testifing to any generation feeling or parent-child issues. The Girlie tries to say more then just: "Parents should not take drugs."

Petr Vlček