Reviews

Originally, many years ago, I gave the film 6 out of 10. I was upset. Today, I can block my irritation and be more fair.

They got the uniforms wrong, they got the Czech language badly wrong everywhere. They even abused our national anthem. To repeat that Pilsen is in Czechoslovakia might be politically correct but irritating, too. If they did not want to call it Protektorat, they should have said "occupied Czechoslovakia".

And the main idea is wrong, Hitler would not allow the use of chemical weapons. He was scared of them because he himself was poisoned on the front. He was not a coward in WWI, on the contrary, he earned the iron cross.

Pity. Still 7 out of 10.

This is one of the most famous South African films. And yet, it is not a comedy like most of our current films, nor it is a film against apartheid. Apartheid is taken for granted by everyone in the film, with a possible exception of an expatriate black pastor who, thoroughly westernized, appears only very briefly at the beginning of the film.

The greatest strength of the film is that it rings true. All characters, while thinking and acting in so many different ways, are believable to anyone who lived in South Africa. Each of them has his inner truth. The acting is superb, there is not a single false note. The direction is straightforward, its goal is to document the story, it does not aspire to more. There is no need to show off, if the sea is beautiful, yes, it is beautiful but it is there only because it has its part to play. The camera does self-indulge in a way which might have felt dated even in 1969 (scenes of a young couple in love) but it's easy to forgive.

There are a few sentences in Afrikaans but, again, this has its function and should not worry anybody.

One of the young lovers (a minor role) is played by very young Katinka Heyns who, besides her excellent directing, is also well known in South Africa as an actress. To quote The National Television & Video Association of South Africa:

"Katinka Heyns is an acclaimed actress, director and producer who first won the collective heart of South Africa as an actress in films such as "Katrina" and in the television series "Willem". She is honoured for work such as her first feature film "Fiela se Kind" and its strong anti-apartheid statement, as well as "Die storie van Klara Viljee", a feminist film supporting the rights of female individuals. Her feature film "Paljas" was the first South African film to be accepted as an entry in the Oscar Awards category for "Best Foreign Film"."

Possibly with the help of her blond and fair-skinned son, Katrina has been accepted as a white person and she wants to stay that way and be happy. Sure, she loves her dying mother who lives in a village, and her brother and all the others but would not dream of returning to her coloured (mixed race in South Africa) village because living like a white person in town "is a different life!"

She wants her son, Paul, to feel the same way. Paul does not even know that he is coloured. But he is a doctor and is prepared to serve where he is most needed and, in his profession, he is remarkably colour-blind. This is a tragic story and almost everybody suffers one way or another in the film, and Paul gets his share. Despite the tragedy in the air, the film manages to avoid being depressing or unpleasant. It also keeps your attention all the time.

Alec Treveyllan is a white pastor who comes with a dark secret. Katrina could help him if she did not have her own deception to handle. In the meantime, he is miserable, lonely and vulnerable. Does he really love her (and her songs - truly beautiful!) or does he just need her strength?

Adam September is a coloured ideologist of apartheid. He does not want to be white, he wants to uplift his own people. He also wants to protect his sister Katrina who does not want to be protected...

An interesting thought comes to mind: what if coloureds of today are much darker than in 1969? Katrinas and Pauls acted as a sort of natural selection - weeding out white man's genes from the coloured community! At the same time, under apartheid, the area in and around Cape Town was reserved to whites and coloureds - then guess who the blacks who managed to settle in the Cape pretended to be?

Housing was a major problem in Czechoslovakia. If you had a flat, you were OK, the rent was controlled and thus relatively cheap, but if you did not, you had to try very hard to get one. If you moved out or died and a relative was not already registered as living with you, the flat might be lost! One way for ordinary people who needed to move was to swap flats.

This film takes this idea to the extreme: Why not move a number of households in a circular fashion at the same time? Of course, it requires a lot of organizing and a lot of goodwill on all sides. Anything can go wrong and it does! What if somebody changes his mind, the whole scheme collapses!

Quite an easy way to make a comedy. Despite efforts by some excellent actors, this one is not the greatest.

After the war, Czechoslovakia expelled 3 million Germans living on her territory, most of whom had welcomed Hitler's annexation of Sudetenland when Great Britain and France betrayed the small country in 1938. The expulsion done by a presidential decree was a bloody affair. Maybe 300 000 Germans died in the process and many Germans still hate Czechs for it. (The Czechs, not all of whom are prepared to acknowledge their forefathers' brutality, point out that many of their countrymen had been killed by Nazis. The issue is controversial and topical today due to the Czech Republic's effort to become a member of the European Union for which they need support by both Austria and Germany.)

"The Rally" is based on a communist writer Vaclav Rezac's well-written novel of the same name and gives the Czech perspective. It largely ignores the fact that most of the Czechs who "rallied" and moved to Sudetenland to take over German properties were low-life opportunists or even criminals and not the genuine Czech minority driven out by the Nazis in 1938. (A large-scale destruction of a previously beautifully maintained region followed as a natural consequence.)

True or not, the film is a heroic adventure story, well made and effective. It was made by a prolific old timer, film director Otakar Vavra, who successfully adapted a number very different novels during his long carrier. For example sci-fi "Krakatit" by Karel Capek, a historical war epic "Proti vsem" by Alois Jirasek, poetic "Romance pro kridlovku" and The Inquisition horror "Kladivo na carodejnice".

When the communists took over in Czechoslovakia in 1948, many people decided to leave. At the same time, the Americans were sending armed freedom-fighters into the country. The communist reaction was to seal the borders with the West, creating the Iron Curtain. This, of course, took time and there was a period when it was still possible to walk across the border if you knew how. There were local people who were prepared to help escapees and the most famous of them was the "King of Boehmerwald".

He was armed and an excellent shot, shooting accurately while falling to the ground. A prototype for Rambo, perhaps. They never got him and when the border was finally sealed and it was impossible to get near the border on the Czech side (there was a several miles-wide forbidden strip of land), he simply stayed in the West.

The film tells us otherwise. It pitches Czechoslovak border guards, ordinary drafted soldiers selected for their communist persuasion, in an uneven battle against this man. They do not even know who he is but they prevail in the end. It is an exciting film.

The rough puppets supposed to be Gothic and artistic are just plain ugly, unmatched and confusing. However, one must admit that they give the film, which as a whole is well put together, a special atmosphere making it striking and memorable.

"Cirkus bude" ("The circus will be" - a literal translation) sounds abbreviated even in Czech, thus a better title could possibly be "The show will be on". As a youngster, I found it very funny and I saw the film several times. The story is simple - early in the day, a circus manager is left with absolutely nobody to perform in the evening - but has many twists and turns until the happy end.

One of the typically Czech unpleasant films, "The time of servants" is about a ruthless and selfish young woman destroying everything in her path until she destroys herself. It is the craftsmanship of the film-makers that succeeds in making you believe that she, through sheer cunning and gall, can get away with it until the very end.

The unpleasantness of a number Czech films is an interesting phenomenon. It was there during the most glorious period of the country's cinematography in the sixties ("A blonde in love" (1965)) but it was kept under control - just like in the best current films ("Kolja"). Is this a prevailing pessimism about the human nature, possibly a reaction against the patently untrue communist idea of the future perfect human being? Are they trying to say that if a film is pleasant it can't be true to life? Somehow, through misdirected intensity, they manage to make the whole film unpleasant instead of just the character that deserves it.

"Grandmother" is a highly romanticized autobiographical novel by a Czech 19th century writer, Bozena Nemcova. It's a classical, compulsory reading in Czech schools, about a wise, working-class woman, happier in her simplicity and good heart than the nobles whom she serves. If at all true, her childhood with her granny must have been one of very few happy periods in Nemcova's life. Of course, not everything is serene, Nemcova was too good a writer for that, there is also Nemcova's Ophelia, crazy Viktorka, running in the forests after being seduced and abandoned (remember this was early 19th century). The scenes with Viktorka are the most striking and memorable in this excellent film released during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia to boost the people's morale.

This is an excellent movie, close to a masterpiece, but it is flawed in a fundamental way. The problem lies in the script. In the book, everything is logical, the assassin just one step ahead of the pursuers who, against all odds, do a tremendous job. In the film, the element of chance was introduced too early and it almost spoils it. It should have been reserved to the final scenes (shooting of de Gaule), like in the book. Only the strength of original story saves it for me. It is hard to believe that the author, who shares the credits for the script, could allow it.

Derek Wilson in a South African newspaper used words like sexually explicit, curiosity value, a randy woman, hardly titillating (no pun intended), incomprehensible silly ending, men she portrays are pathetic. All true, I would add that Paul was not just pathetic, he was a prime idiot, thus the movie obviously does not target me because I am not! To me, Romance is not an art movie, it's too weak to be that, and fails as a porn movie because Caroline Ducey is simply not sexy enough. If the sex scenes were real and not acted, she is not good in bed! She was reasonable only in the "rape" scene (rape??). Thus Breillat's only achievement is to get a porn movie into mainstream cinemas. Not enough!

This was a film of my childhood. I saw it 50 years ago and still some scenes are vivid in my memory. Like when Suche threw his revolver on the scale when asked how much meat he wanted to buy or when Lenin answered him that they should make "some worker" a president of the people's republic (what a laugh, I know now). The country was, of course, Mongolia, and this film was a fine piece of Russian war-time propaganda. I saw it only once but I also had a paperback with the full dialogue which I read again and again. I believe that the makers of the American film on Genghis Khan must have seen the film because at least the closing scenes have a lot in common.

American Beauty is a film about bad decisions, past, present and future. Possibly the worst one (and the competition was strong) was Jane's. My overriding feeling after seeing this brilliant film was feeling sorry for her. Where did we fail her? Why did she end up with the worst character in the film, one without any redeeming features? AB needs a sequel, Jane needs to right herself. I don't know how. It will require another very clever screenplay.

Boring and pretentious. To me, everything about this movie is phoney, starting with the title as the film is not based on the famous Pillow Book. It tries very hard to be fanciful, most of the time it just does not work. The nudity is surgical. One sits and wonders if something of interest would come, nothing does.

Forman does not make bad films. I sat spellbound for 2 hours and was sorry when it was over. It's no comedy, in fact it is hard work to watch. But worth it. It will never be a popular film, there were four of is in the cinema on that night. Like Kaufman, the film does not go for cheap laughs (if any). At best, it amuses and, like Kaufman, it entertains.

Action thriller. A CIA agent aborts his mission but serves life for murder anyway. He is sprung from the prison to do one more job... Don Mogavero is excellent. Everything is good about this film except the wife's acting. Thankfully, she is not there long enough to spoil this film. Not terribly original but all the familiar bits are nicely put together, the result is highly entertaining.

The sheer stupidity of military and of war. These two ideas make this propaganda film also, rather unfortunately, two films glued together, each rather short (and would be even shorter if they were not so repetitive) and thin on ideas. But the message is strong, the direction is brilliant and the result is a powerful experience.