In Karlovy Vary Film Festival competition entry “We Have Never Been Modern,” Czech director Matej Chlupacek takes on both the dangers of Utopian bubbles and the power of unbending faith in traditional gender concepts.
The story, set in a Slovak company town built by a visionary industrialist, takes place on the eve of World War II, as a murder mystery threatens to upset the idealized community. The factory director’s wife Helena, played by Eliska Krenkova, is an aspiring doctor who is soon to give birth. But her rosy future is suddenly darkened by the discovery of the body of a newborn intersex baby in the factory’s courtyard.
All these elements might seem like a heavy burden for a young indie filmmaker who eschewed film school and whose last effort at making a feature was a decade ago, “Touchless” – made when he was a 17-year-old debut writer-director.
But Chlupacek...
The story, set in a Slovak company town built by a visionary industrialist, takes place on the eve of World War II, as a murder mystery threatens to upset the idealized community. The factory director’s wife Helena, played by Eliska Krenkova, is an aspiring doctor who is soon to give birth. But her rosy future is suddenly darkened by the discovery of the body of a newborn intersex baby in the factory’s courtyard.
All these elements might seem like a heavy burden for a young indie filmmaker who eschewed film school and whose last effort at making a feature was a decade ago, “Touchless” – made when he was a 17-year-old debut writer-director.
But Chlupacek...
- 7/9/2023
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Czech director Matěj Chlupáček may not even be 30 yet, but when his period drama We Have Never Been Modern (Úsvit) debuted in the main competition of the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival a few days ago, buzz was ringing through the fest halls that it could become the Czech submission for the 2024 Academy Awards.
The film, with a screenplay by Miro Šifra, is set in 1937’s Czechoslovakia and follows Helena (Eliška Křenková, Bird Atlas, Winter Flies) who is about to give birth and face a rosy future in a modern city as the wife of a successful young factory manager. “However, all her illusions soon perish, as the dead body of a newborn intersex baby is found in the middle of their factory,” a plot description highlights. “Helena needs to find out what happened here for the safety of her own child, but she runs into her own prejudices.
The film, with a screenplay by Miro Šifra, is set in 1937’s Czechoslovakia and follows Helena (Eliška Křenková, Bird Atlas, Winter Flies) who is about to give birth and face a rosy future in a modern city as the wife of a successful young factory manager. “However, all her illusions soon perish, as the dead body of a newborn intersex baby is found in the middle of their factory,” a plot description highlights. “Helena needs to find out what happened here for the safety of her own child, but she runs into her own prejudices.
- 7/6/2023
- by Georg Szalai
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A lacquered Czech period piece with surprisingly topical interests at its core, “We Have Never Been Modern” rather ambitiously borrows its title from a key text by the late French philosopher Bruno Latour — in which he argued that humanity’s distinction between nature and our own culture is a wholly modern development, and one we’d do best to move away from. While Latour’s ideas can indeed be mapped onto a story that charts modern society’s fixation on human advancement against its rejection of human difference, Matěj Chlupáček’s gripping, gleamingly produced second feature isn’t as academic as all that: Ultimately a humane message movie planting flags for both women’s liberation and queer rights, this Karlovy Vary competition premiere could easily resonate with festival and arthouse audiences away from home turf.
Following extensive work in TV, shorts and music videos, Chlupáček’s return to the big...
Following extensive work in TV, shorts and music videos, Chlupáček’s return to the big...
- 7/4/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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