Přemysl Martínek
Želary is not a Cosy Film
Director Ondřej Trojan creates Czech heroes who can defend themselves
Ondřej Trojan has made a name for himself mostly as the producer of popular hits such as Cosy Dens and Pupendo. Now, after 13 years, he returns to directing with his long-awaited Želary, based on the two books by writer Květa Legátová. The film's premier this Thursday can easily be considered one of the biggest events in Czech cinematography this year.
Alone in the Mountains
The fates of Czechs during World War Two can provide a testament to the
conflicts within domestic society and revise the ideologically damaged reflections
upon our own history. Therefore it is not surprising that this theme is
so popular after 1989. Želary returns to a sober and well thought out story
the result of which is not highlighting the author, nor a strict interpretation
of history, but a living and whole picture of the environment of the time.
The story begins in 1943, when Eliška (Aňa Geislerová), a medical student,
leaves the south Moravian city of Brno and with it, her old identity, in
order to save her own life after a member of the resistance is arrested.
Her lover Richard (Ivan Trojan) finds a place for her to hide in the mountain
village of Želary, the hometown of one of her patients. The confident and
emancipated Eliška, now under the name of Hana, must now rely on the help
of the uneducated and rugged mountain man Joza (György Cserhalmi), who she
has to marry.
Instead of focusing on the inner development of the main character, the
story focuses on her relationship with this new world. This is especially
obvious in the scene where Joza and the other men complete the new floor
of their cabin, giving Eliška her first feeling of joy in a long time. As
rays of light hit the freshly sanded wooden planks and fine dust rises in
the air, she realizes how much she is dependent on the help of others. What
the director loses in internal psychology must be made up elsewhere.
Ondřej Trojan is not a classical original director with a defined signature
and does not attempt any formal experiments. In fact, his method of storytelling
is rather traditional. What makes Želary better than most other Czech films
is his great care and sensitivity in choosing his partners, including actors,
locations, dialects and music. Trojan and cinematographer Asen Šopov model
the landscape using gentle panoramas, camera pans and artistically fresh
angles that are far from the clichés of other retro films such as Kuře melancholik.
The less the camera draws attention to itself, the more space is given to
the actors, especially the excellent Aňa Geislerová and Hungarian György
Cserhalmi in the lead roles. The director is able to put the plot into large
blocks, such as the emotional wedding sequence, work at the sawmill or in
the final defense of the hideout, a broken-down mill in the swamp, from
the Russians. This fantastically reflects the natural energy of the location.
The End of the Village
Although Ondřej Trojan is more a true storyteller than an experimenter
that plays with cinematic and social conventions, his story has touched
several touchy historical themes. At the end of the film, as in the book,
a conflict arises between the villagers and Russian soldiers. The longed-for
end of the war is transformed into a bloodbath that begins with the attempted
rape of a local girl by several Russian liberators. Legátová's naturalistic
descriptions of the battle is eased by Trojan and he also divided the Russians
into "bad" drunk partisans and "good" regular soldiers
who manage to calm the situation, but it is still amazing how aggressively
this sequence destroys the myth of problem-free relations between the Red
Army and the people it liberated. Another pleasant surprise is the large
amount of individual bravery displayed by the people of Želary. Trojan and
screenwriter Petr Jarchovský have shown almost motherly understanding for
traditional Švejk-like characters in the recent films of director Jan Hřebejk,
and therefore it is nice to see a film about regular people who become heroes
and who are willing to fight for one another to the last.
The final scene in the film, where Eliška returns to Želary, probably at
the beginning of the 1960s is another touching masterpiece. Her car climbs
the winding roads among the newly constructed buildings and it is clear
that Želary has ceased to be an enclosed space closely tied to nature and
traditions, but instead has become just another village decimated by the
communists. These extremely strong scenes provide a great deal of information
and symbolize the change in the structure of Czech villages after the communist
takeover in 1948.
Trojan's Želary is not a fundamental landmark in Czech cinematography, but
it is the first Czech film in a long time where the excellent work of the
entire crew is focused on telling a strong, concise and most importantly
convincing story that reflects the tragedies of the twentieth century. Because
of this, Želary has a chance to become a truly European film.
Přemysl Martinek
The author is a student of cinematography at Charles University.
This review was published in the prestigious lifestyle weekly "Reflex."