I can't imagine anyone will ever make a better movie than this about the legendary founding of the city of Prague. That's right, Prague. Not Paris. Not London. Not Berlin. The Pagan Queen purports to tell the Dark Ages origins of Prague. Weirdly, though, it's not a foreign language film. It was made in the Czech Republic but everybody's speaking English, and largely unaccented English at that. This also isn't some trashy romp with topless chicks running around and a bunch of badly staged battle scenes that look like kids playing in the backyard with Nerf swords. There is some nudity and violence here but this is, more or less, a well intentioned effort at bringing a mythic page of Czech history to life and to his credit, co-writer/director Constantin Werner does a decent job of it.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is a great movie or even a very good one. However, I have seen motion pictures so awful they would make you doubt the existence of a kind and loving God. The Pagan Queen has an above average cast, some very solid production values given its screamingly obvious budget limitations and is directed with a competent eye. The writing here is the weakest link, with a plot that should have dispensed with several side characters and their stories while imbuing either more realism or more imagination to it's main focus, but everything makes some kind of sense and I can admire the narrative ambition of the script. It feels like Werner clung a little to tightly to the legend when he should have concentrated on telling the best tale he could.
Libuse (Winter Ave Zoli) is a seer in 700 AD central Europe. When her father dies, she is elevated to the council of her kingdom and proves herself so wise and inspiring a leader that she is named queen. As she is pressured to marry, she instead carries on a secret affair with a lowly plowman named Premysi (Csaba Lucas) and sets her people to mining the great wealth out of their land. A dispute between miners and farmers eventually escalates to the point where Libuse must take a husband to calm things down and she manipulates a marriage to Premysi, who proves to be a hard and ruthless king. Eventually, a childhood friend of Libuse's (Lea Mornar) raises an army of women warriors in rebellion against Premysi and becomes another bloody foundation stone in the great city that Libuse dreams and Premysi sets about to create. There's also a whole subplot about Libuse's sisters (Vera Filatova and Veronika Bellova) and how they symbolize the decline of the "old ways" and the rise of Christian modernity.
Winter Ave Zoli is fine as Libuse, beautiful and capable of more depth than you might expect. Csaba Lucas gives a one note performance but hits that note exactly right. Lea Mornar is the standout here and gives real spirit to her part, though it's somewhat offset by her having an accent more pronounced than the rest of the cast put together. Frankly, there's no one on screen here that makes you think they got their role through some exchange of cash or sexual favors.
While there's an amateurish edge to the script, Werner did quite a job of making a film that looks good with little spent. The costumes and props look nice and everything is lit well and sounds clear. The sets are largely forest clearings and what appears to be medieval tourist attractions rented out for a day or two, but The Pagan Queen looks like a legitimate film and not something high school kids did with their camera phones over spring break.
With some romance, political intrigue, environmental moralizing and plenty of attractive actresses, The Pagan Queen is almost good enough to recommend. The story is just weak enough and the subject matter handled too demurely for that. What I can say is there's a lot of crap out there far worse than this movie. And if you've got a hankering to know the mysterious beginnings of Prague, you now know where to look.
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