A brief film review: "I, Olga Hepnarova" [2016 Czech Rep., Poland]

Petr Kazda and Tomás Weinreb make a memorable directorial feature film debut with their biopic, "I, Olga" [Orig. Title: Já, Olga Hepnarová]. Olga Hepnarová was the last woman to be executed in Czechoslovakia in 1975 after she was found guilty of intentionally causing the death of eight elderly people and injuring several others by running them over with her truck. the film tries to explore events in Olga's life that may have contributed to her desire to 'seek revenge' on society in general.

We follow troubled teen Olga (Michalina Olszanska) from the day of her attempted suicide, when her mother (Klára Melísková) remarks coldly after bringing her back from the hospital, "To commit suicide you need a strong will, something you certainly don’t have". Olga, we're led to believe, has felt alienated even while growing up in an educated middle class household.

Olga's sense of alienation is reinforced during her spell in institutions where she's bullied and abused by others, even if some of her woes might have been brought upon by herself in pushing away people who may have even wanted to help her. Unable to hold down a job, she ends up working as a truck driver, and secretly nurtures a hatred towards a society seemingly unsympathetic to her suffering.

At twenty, Olga is a confused young woman even unsure of her sexuality and likens herself to a sexual cripple - she begins a lesbian affair and falls in love with co-worker Jitka (Marika Soposká), even though the latter is in a long-term relationship with another woman. She subsequently has casual relations with other women and men, but never tries to work on a long-term relationship with any of them. But some of them nevertheless remain with her until the end.

Two thirds of the film is thus dedicated to constructing Olga's confused, discontented character and her world, and until then it works well as a drama on its own. It's the final third of the film, covering events after she ploughs through a group of elderly people waiting at a tram stop that it falters slightly. We don't 'study' Olga any longer and are merely presented facts during and after her trial, in which she defiantly but unconvincingly proclaims death penalty on society itself, whose 'bestiality' she had allegedly been a victim of. It's as if the directors themselves didn't want to have an opinion about Olga's actions, but somehow want us to empathise with her.

This is partly because even though Ms. Olszanska gives an impressive performance as the confused and angry Olga, she doesn't convincingly come across as a psychopath; a geeky rebel going through a goth phase perhaps, but certainly not a scheming mass murderer (she's far too cute-looking and that doesn't help either). But then again, may be the world wasn't ready for Olga too and didn't quite know how to deal with her, who knows. However, despite these minor flaws, the film is well made and shows a lot of promise for the director duo. It also boasts impressive black and white cinematography, with some scenes as exquisitely framed as in a Frantisek Vlácil film. An imperfect gem, but Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL]

 

The Nudity: Michalina Olszanska, Marika Soposká, and Malwina Turek
The film features two lesbian sex scenes of a fairly frank nature with nudity. The scenes may be justified for establishing Olga's self-proclaimed sexual ambiguity. There's also a scene where Olga flashes at a night club for perhaps the same reason.



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A review: "Pupendo" [2003, Czech Rep.]

Jan Hrebejk's comedy "Pupendo" takes a wry look at the last days of communist Czechoslovakia by comparing the fortunes of two families who, though ideologically similar, adapt to life under the regime in starkly contrasting ways.










Bedrich (Bolek Polívka), a successful and respected sculptor prior to the crushing of the Prague Spring, has since been ostracised for his liberal views, and because of his steadfast refusal to enrol in the party and suck-up to the system, effectively jobless, and ekes out a living by reproducing kitsch pottery for a local businessman. His stoic wife Alena (Eva Holubová) and their two boys - one of them deaf, make up a closely-knit family with few disagreements among them.

The other family that we get to follow is of Mila (Jaroslav Dusek), married to Bedrich's former lover Magda (Vilma Cibulková). Even though he too hates the political system, he complies, and is also a member of the communist party. He's rewarded by being made headteacher of the school where boys of both the families attend. Mila's older daughter Pavla is presently Bedrich's apprentice. Magda, once Bedrich's student herself, also complies with authorities, and is the head of the Artists Union.

When a drunk Bedrich brings home a bum that he saw rummaging through bins, Alena isn't too pleased, and to make her point, offers the stranger Bedrich's supper. The stranger would turn out to be Alois Fabera (Jirí Pecha), an art historian, fallen on hard times following a divorce. Fabera, already aware of Bedrich's past works, uses his residual influence in the art establishment to assign him a contract for a mural at the school - one that's aspirational but also apolitical enough for Bedrich to accept.

Magda persuades Bedrich to take up another 'national' project as a return favour, and all goes well for a while, until a candid disclosure in a radio interview by Fabera lands them in hot water with the establishment, after which both families' privileges get curtailed. However, Fabera also succeeds in getting Bedrich noticed by art establishments outside Czechoslovakia, and before long, Bedrich will have foreign admirers arriving at his doorstep...

A slice of life as seen by the director during the pre-Velvet Revolution days, the film, much like most Czech films made in the period following communism, presents the picture of an intelligentsia desperately yearning for change. It remains a popular subject for Czechs to this day, and the film duly obliges. But it is also a breezy, well made comedy that directly addresses its audience - one of the reasons for its box office success. While I couldn't yet make a connection between the film's title - alluding to a prank game played using a coin, and the film's context, it is nevertheless entertaining, and Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL]

 

The Nudity: Vilma Cibulková and Hana Seidlová
In a memorable scene, Magda, who is visiting Bedrich's to oversee an upcoming sculpture, is in the shower when she hears Bedrich say that he wants to abandon the work. She angrily bursts into the studio and starts arguing with him in the nude. Forty year old Vilma Cibulková was brave enough to do the scene, and it reminded me of another more recent performance by Anne Louise Hassing, also in her forties - it's so uplifting to watch middle-aged women walk about just as nature intended, in the nude. The second scene is of Mila's son Matej eyeing a woman sunbathing, only to pleasantly discover that she's also his teacher from school. The teacher is played by Hana Seidlová.



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A review: "Marketa Lazarová" [1967 Czechoslovakia]

Frantisek Vlácil is considered one of the pioneers of the Czech New Wave. Having started out as a graphic artist, Vlácil ventured into film, particularly features, much later in his career, and therefore belonged to an earlier generation to his other New Wave contemporaries. He wasn't film school trained, but his extraordinary visual flair had enabled him to bequeath cinema with some of the most exquisite compositions ever captured on film. Obsessed with detail and equipped with a natural instinct for theatre, his films presented drama and history of the very highest order - art pieces that until recently, were also among the best kept secrets in cinema, because not many outside his country got to see them. There is an informative article about Frantisek Vlácil in BFI's old website that some may find of interest.



I'll start Vlácil's filmography here with what is arguably his finest masterpiece, "Marketa Lazarová", a film that in 1998 was also voted the greatest Czech film ever made by his country's film makers, critics, and historians. The medieval epic could broadly be compared in its authenticity and grandeur to Bergman's The Seventh Seal and Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, and in its feudal subject matter to Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Berri's Manon des sources - it's no coincidence that the comparable films are also masterpieces in their own right.

The film tells a tale of neighbours who become sworn enemies - the noblemen and their respective clans will feud to death in order to gain supremacy over the region. One of the two, pagan Kozlik (Josef Kemr), called 'Goat', is a battle-scarred man who has more children than the number of pigs in his farm. He and his sons make a living by preying on caravans passing through the highway.

The other - Lazar (Michal Kozuch), is a Christian, who selectively interprets his new religion to justify criminality and treachery - according to him, "the just are allowed to transgress seven times a day". Obviously, 'noblemen' during those dark ages weren't necessarily men who were morally erect, cultured, and law-abiding - it was all about survival of the fittest and the most brutal.

Lazar had promised what he holds most dear, his virginal daughter Marketa (Magda Vásáryová), to the Church, in the hope of redeeming himself from his seven-a-day transgressions. But fate dictates otherwise when Marketa is abducted and raped by Mikolás (Frantisek Velecký), Kozlik's favourite son, during one of the clan's raids.

Kozlik's got problems too - he's holding a young German count captive, and the King had already instructed the Royal Regiment's Captain to arrest him. The captain will get his man through one of Kozlik's other sons - the one-armed Adam (Ivan Palúch). But before that, there will be plenty of carnage and skulduggery from both sides, and sub-plots involving other characters, including a wandering hermit aptly named Bernard (Vladimír Mensík) and his lamb, and the story behind Adam's one-handedness, which in turn will shed light on his past relationship with his sister Alexandra (Pavla Polaskova), who's now in love with the captive German count.

Aside from its starkness and harsh brutality, this is also a pretty difficult film to follow, and to make an objective assessment would take more than a single viewing. While this is partly due to it's 'lyrical' screenplay, it is exacerbated for foreign viewers with the subtitling that translates the literal rather than implied message from the dialogues, as often happens with literary works. If you approach the film as you would an ancient play, the film will begin to make a whole lot more sense.

Whether you could follow the plot or not, this will be one of the most visually gorgeous films you'll ever see. Bedrich Batka's breathtaking black and white cinematography that carefully interprets Vlácil's compositions, combined with the eclectic but majestic film-score, will have you transfixed from the very beginning - it's difficult to take your eyes off the screen because it is that sumptuous. My Second Run DVD is spectacular in itself, but Criterion has now come out with a Blu-ray edition as well. This is naturally one of the 'must-see' films for any film enthusiast, and is certainly Highly Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL] | Amazon.com Blu-ray Link

 

The Nudity: Magda Vásáryová and Pavla Polaskova
Beautiful Magda Vásáryová makes her feature film début as the titular character - she'd become a star and will later venture into politics as well, by serving as diplomat, and also running for presidency in Slovakia. She briefly appears nude during a scene when her character is raped by Mikolás - and ironically they fall in love afterwards. There is also frontal nudity from exotic beauty Pavla Polaskova who plays Alexandra, the wild and sensuous daughter of Kozlik. She appears nude in two scenes - the first is during the young German count's fantasy, and later when it becomes reality.



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A brief review: "Requiem pro panenku" [1991 Czechoslovakia]

Actor-director Filip Renc's "Requiem pro panenku" [Requiem for a Maiden] is based on true events that happened in 1984, when a troubled fourteen year old girl was interned in the wrong institution - she should have gone into social care following abuse at home, but instead ended up in a mental asylum.

Marika (Anna Geislerová) alerts the mostly female staff of the administrative mistake but few will take her seriously, while some are clearly reluctant to see her leave - the place was more or less a prison, where patients are frequently abused, and occasionally killed due to medication overdose. Marika, not helped by her own assertiveness and rebellious behaviour, becomes their target, and a women among them will also become sexually obsessed with her. Marika's attempts at directly contacting authorities lands her in further trouble, and when she escapes, is captured and brought back to endure further misery. Out of desperation, she sets fire to the hospital that will also kill some inmates. The film fast-forwards to a few years later (after Marika had served time in prison for arson) to show her walking amongst the ruins of the once-infamous asylum.

I was reminded of this film after reading a recent news report of a Russian mental institution that was gutted by fire that also killed several inmates. It appears that in most countries, old practices in state-run facilities - of ignoring warning signs and papering the failings, truly die hard. In the Czech incident, three staff members were punished for professional misconduct, as was Marika, but the people who wrongly placed her in the asylum got off scot-free. As for the film, apart from the retelling of a horrendous incident, the most noteworthy aspect is the actress playing the lead character - it saw the staring début of Anna Geislerová who was only fourteen at the time of production. She will go on to become a major actress over the years, also working with award-winning directors such as Jan Sverák and Jan Svankmajer. One of the last films made in the old Czechoslovakia, the gritty and melodramatic drama can also be appreciated for its historic credentials. Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL] (No subtitles)

 

The Nudity: Anna Geislerová
Anna Geislerová appears briefly nude in several scenes, and while it is interesting to see how little she'd changed over the years, the scenes themselves are not particularly pleasant to watch.



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Jirí Menzel's "Skrivánci na niti" [1969 Czechoslovakia]

Jirí Menzel was an important part of the Czechoslovak New Wave - a film movement during the 1960's when a handful of its directors made remarkable observations on society and culture through compelling cinema, and with an openness rarely noticed in the Eastern Bloc. Often drawn from literature, the films were funded by the government and therefore need to have a formal narrative and message, but they were also liberal in the use of satire and wit, influenced to some degree by Italian neorealism. Their artistic freedom and finesse made them popular fare in international film festivals and were often also nominated for Academy Awards, with Menzel bagging the prize himself for best foreign feature through his 1966 "Closely Watched Trains".

I'll start his filmography with a film that he made in 1968 and finished the following year, "Skrivánci na niti" [Eng. Title: Larks on a String], because it was also the year of the Prague Spring, when Czechoslovakia briefly experimented in socialism "with a human face" before being invaded and brutally crushed by Brezhnev's Soviet Union. Larks on a String touches a raw nerve in its depiction of an incompetent and morally corrupt political system that hampered prosperity and well-being. Promptly banned upon completion, Menzel was also prevented from making films for five years, and his passport was confiscated so that he couldn't even make films abroad. The film was not released until the fall of communism thirty years later.

Based on a collection of short stories by Bohumil Hrabal - a frequent Menzel collaborator, the film makes a spirited critique of a system using a labour camp set in a scrapyard as metaphor, by highlighting the futility of trying to refashion a new people out of the bourgeois - that they will never become better than what they already were, and that it will only end up creating another new albeit embarrassingly incompetent bunch of bourgeois from the working classes.

Set in the early fifties, we see a 'cultural revolution' in action, where a group of disparate but 'bourgeois' dissidents are serving time in a labour camp before they could be re-integrated into society - they range from a philosopher, public prosecutor, saxophonist, and a cook, to even a barber. On the other side of the camp are the female inmates - bourgeois too, separated by a wooden fence. Vivacious and flirty, the women make the men's lives bearable through exchange of glances from a distance, and the occasional brushing of hands during errands, while the guards aren't watching. The cook Pavel (Václav Neckár) and Jitka (Jitka Zelenohorská) strike up a beautiful romance in the process, and even get officially married upon Pavel's release, albeit through a surrogate bride - because Jitka has a few more months to serve. But due to turn of events, they'll have to wait for a while before their marriage is consummated...

What the film represents is not only the exuberant nature of the Czech people and their desire for individual freedoms, but also a system that hampers them from serving the state productively, and its hypocrisy in creating new elites while eliminating the earlier ones. The film's whimsical tone prevents us from dismissing the system and the guards altogether, who are shown as merely doing what they're expected to do while silently reflecting on the farcical nature of their duties. There may be nothing insidious in the film's tone, but the message is nevertheless incendiary, striking at the very heart of the system. Despite that, the film is a humanist, affectionate, and life-affirming ode to its people, and more importantly - a snapshot of the expectations and aspirations of the Prague Spring, which makes it Highly Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL]

 

The Nudity: Jitka Zelenohorská and others
The excuse for me writing about this film is a brief scene where male inmates gather for their 'cinema' of the evening - peeping through the fence as women change into their night robes. Jitka knows that they're being watched, and waves towards them after the 'show' finishes. There is also a hilarious scene involving a functionary and a policeman volunteering to improve local hygiene - they seem to be more keen in helping wash pretty young girls than the elderly they're supposed to be taking care of.



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Scenes from "Divá Bára" [1949 Czechoslovakia]

Vladimir Cech's quaint little drama from 1949, "Divá Bára" [Eng. Trans: Wild Bara], is for those who love a good ol' fashioned 'black and white' romance now and again. Not the kind that'll well your eyes with tears though - it's just another jolly-good romp in classic Tarzan-and-Jane fashion.

Storyline:
Set around the nineteenth century, the straight-as-an-arrow linear narrative starts with baby Bára (short, for Barbara) born on a stormy night to a shepherd's wife. Her mother's unfortunate death during the delivery marks Bára as an ill omen by the village folk, and some will go as far as to branding her a future witch. The film fast-forwards to a youthful and all grown-up Bára (Vlasta Fialová) who, as if to add fuel to rumours, attracts plenty of attention from young lads in the village for her beauty, athleticism, and boldness - "wild Bára", they called her. And doting mothers went the extra mile to make sure their sons don't fall under her spell. Except the village priest and his niece Eliska, who take Bára under their wing, supporting her in whatever way they can. A handsome ranger falls in love with Bára, which she reciprocates. One day, she gets into trouble among some villagers, after she gets caught while playing a prank - by pretending to be a ghost, in order to dissuade a rich suitor of her friend Eliska from asking her hand. Eliska, after all, is in love with someone about her own age in the city, and had asked for Bára's help in stymieing his marriage proposal. Angry villagers lock her up in the local mortuary which accidentally catches fire, soon getting out of control. The heroic ranger arrives on horseback to rescue Bára in timely fashion, and together they walk away into the sunset.

A film like this should obviously be judged for its entertainment value alone. But it is rather well made, considering its age, and the cinema of the time - it even captures some stunning views of the Czech countryside in the process. There is a quaint air of innocence about the film, which I presume must have been wholeheartedly welcomed at the time - after all, people in the region were living through hell only a few years earlier. At least for the novelty, the film is Recommended Viewing!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL]
Divá Bára English Subtitles - 25 fps
[I compiled it especially for the above DVD as it only comes with Czech subtitles]

 

The Nudity: Vlasta Fialová
In the only nude scene of the film, Vlasta Fialová, who made her debut playing Bára, has a dip in the lake while lads from the village spy on her. One of them tries to take advantage when she emerges, but instead ends in the water himself.



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Miriam Kantorková in "Romance pro Kridlovku" [1966 Czechoslovakia]

Otakar Vávra is widely considered the father of Czech cinema, with a career spanning the best part of the twentieth century and a bit, including some of the most turbulent years in the country's history. But his most famous work is his 1966 drama "Romance pro kridlovku" [Eng. Title: Romance for Bugle], a  liberal period in Czechoslovakia that also led to the Prague Spring. The film is based on an epic poem by Frantisek Hrubin, who also worked on the screenplay.

Storyline:
Most of the film is told through flashback as Vojta, a middle aged teacher back in his village after many years, recognises a bugler at the bar. They get talking until he enquires about Terina, a fairground girl with whom he'd fallen deeply in love as a youth during school holidays many decades ago. The film takes us back to that summer, their romance in between his duties tending to an ailing grandfather, and his persistent rivalry with the bugler for Terina's affections.

 

The film is a charming, bitter-sweet romance told with an air of nostalgia while also reminding us of their reality, including class divisions. Beautifully shot with some amazing visuals, it is one of those films that stick with you long after you've put the DVD away. Needless to say, this black and white gem is Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link

 

The Nudity: Miriam Kantorková
There is a special scene where Tonka, a slightly older local lass, beckons Vojta to the spot in the river where she's bathing. After trying not to notice her at first, the boy gives in, and leaves his grandfather to join Tonka for some fun and frolic. The woman is played by a voluptuous Miriam Kantorková.





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