A Film a Week - A Report for Minerva 2 / Zpráva pro Minervu 2

 previously published on Cineuropa

What does a small provincial hotel need? Some staff and some guests. The more, the better – though their characters have to be balanced too. If the characters and types turn out too ordinary, they risk being boring; if they're too weird, they risk seeming outlandish. Of course, one can always spice things up with, say, ghosts haunting the grounds, or aliens paying a visit. And, voilà – here is the blueprint for a bulletproof hotel comedy.

Czech stage actors, directors and playwrights Miroslav Krobot and Lubomír Smékal did exactly that, and then some, for their A Report for Minerva 2 project. It began as a stage production by the amateur troupe Divadelní spolek 23, credited here as one of the producers, before morphing into a film that retained the entire cast from the original show. It premiered at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, as one of the Special Screenings.

Of the two receptionists, one is grumpy because her acting career has ended, while the other is emotional, expecting to give birth any day. The Ukrainian cleaning lady is also grumpy and prone to lashing out at guests, burdened as she is by both work and prejudice. The house painter idles at work, musing on various topics. And one chambermaid keeps appearing, disappearing and teleporting, as though she'd wandered in from a different, more romantic time. A takeover by new management looms, and two "solid" gentlemen (played by the filmmakers themselves) appear – though they act rather strangely.

The guests can be pieces of work too. There's a health-obsessed bore with a touch of OCD, forever pestering his wife, fellow guests and the hotel staff about what's right and what's wrong. A virginal, nerdy loner tries to strike up conversations with women, as does a sex-obsessed slacker, though both chicken out at the crucial moment. A tourist from Slovakia finds herself discriminated against, made to wait for a room to clear despite having a reservation, while a clarinettist is chased from one place to another for "disturbing the guests," even though nobody has actually complained. A beautiful young woman draws the eyes of every man in the room, though all she wants is a sincere conversation. And, finally, there's an alien who must report back to his homeworld, Minerva 2, while still getting to grips with human ways, and the spirit of a Nokia 3310 ("an older model," she notes), lying on the floor in the corner, its battery slowly draining.

Yes, it sounds like an endearingly bizarre ordeal, and its lean 68-minute runtime seems appealing enough. On stage, it might well sustain a longer running time. On screen, though, the translation from one medium to the other is far from smooth. The amateur actors struggle with line delivery more than they would on stage, and the directing duo – of whom only Krobot has any prior filmmaking experience – throw every trick in the book at making the space and the interplay between actors and setting feel livelier and less theatrical, but without much consistency or method behind the individual craft choices. The biggest offender, though, may be the monologues: every character, human, spirit or alien, is given one to voice their inner thoughts, and while these might sit comfortably in a theatre, on screen they feel entirely artificial. In the end, A Report for Minerva 2 comes across as a sincere, honest, but not entirely successful effort; one likely to appeal mainly to existing fans of the stage show.

A Film a Week - Better Go Mad in the Wild / Radeji zešilet v divočine

 previously published on Cineuropa

How much should we hold on to what is perceived as “common knowledge”? When civilisation stops being a comfort and becomes a burden, or even an invader into our private lives? Do we have to follow the clichés, or we are allowed to make up our own rules in our own time and space? More specifically, regarding the latter, can we spend our whole life in only one place, without ever feeling the need to move somewhere and try different things?

Journalist, publicist and writer Aleš Palán asked those very questions in his book Better Go Mad in the Wild, which Slovak documentarian Miro Remo has now adapted for the big screen as Better Go Mad in the Wild. Like Remo’s previous work, the 2021 documentary At Full Throttle, this new genre-defying hybrid film has premiered at the Karlovy Vary IFF, in the Crystal Globe competition.

Twins František and Ondřej Klišík have never left their home in their Šumava region village, on the three-way border between the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. They might have had their heyday during the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when they distributed leaflets against the communist regime and for which they have been decorated, but they did not build any sort of a career out of that success. Neither of them has ever married, as women had trouble adapting to the quirky dynamics between Franta and Ondra, as they call themselves. It also seems that they have never obtained, and even perhaps cannot obtain, a stable job.

Their long beards make them look like artistic types. Their “recreational drug-friendly” lifestyle (even their dog is named Joint) and their wild ideas also suggest as much. However, they have never reached fame and glory or even made something specific that could potentially outlive them. There are certain differences between them as well: František, who we learn lost his arm at a sawmill job, is more of a dreamer who thinks in rhyme but does not write his poems, and wants to construct a new flying perpetuum mobile machine without a blueprint, while Ondřej is more down to earth, but also has a strong appetite for alcohol, which is the subject of many of their quarrels.

We follow them through a series of vignettes over the course of four seasons in a year. During that period, we almost never see them away from their crumbling house and the farming compound surrounding it. František might have a habit of walking naked to the nearby forest, but we never see any of them doing so-called normal things, such as going to town to buy basic groceries, and neither does the filmmaker bother to insert some of the important biographical data about the brothers, which are almost regarded as pieces of public knowledge in the Czech Republic.

How much of the film is documentary or played for the camera's eye? Does it really matter? In any case, Miro Remo transposes us into the twins’ world through the observant cinematography by himself and Dušan Husár, while Šimon Hájek’s and Maté Csuport’s editing creates a certain rhythm in the protagonists’ lives. Theoretically, the classical-heavy soundtrack by Adam Matej should serve as the connection between the film's various passages, but ends up feeling slightly on the nose.

Better Go Mad in the Wild is the kind of a film that raises many more questions than it bothers answering, offering insight into a life that might seem unbelievable for many viewers. This kind of “anything goes” approach might appear mesmerising to some and frustrating to others, but it certainly makes for a unique film.

A Film a Week - The Czech Film Project / Projekt Český film

 previously published on Cineuropa

What makes a Czech film appear, and be, unmistakably “Czech”? That question is at the very centre of Marek Novák’s and Mikuláš Novotný’s documentary The Czech Film Project, which has just premiered at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, in the Special Screenings sidebar. This should not come as a surprise, since it was co-produced by KVIFF Events and was entirely filmed during the previous year’s edition of the largest film gathering in the Czech Republic.

The rules of the game are simple here. There is a room on one of the upper floors of the famous Thermal Hotel, which also serves as the festival centre. In this room, there’s a small table, a couple of armchairs, a plant, a lamp and a big window overlooking Karlovy Vary’s city centre. The weather outside and the guest, or the interviewee, in the room are the only things that change during the whole duration of the documentary. The camera remains in a fixed position, pointed in the same direction, shooting every subject and their answers to a survey about Czech cinema for roughly the same amount of time: each of the 30 or so interviewees hailing from the ranks of Czech or Czech-based filmmakers gets two-and-a-half to three minutes to state their observations and remarks.

Some of them check whether the camera is on properly. Some try to answer the question in a serious tone, while others keep the mood jovial and humorous, or even try to put on a show. For instance, Jan Vejnar appears with a crying baby in his arms, Petr Jákl sports a “last action hero” attitude, and Beata Parkanová sings her opinions. Cristina Groşan is the only one who provides a proper outsider’s insight, repeating the answers she usually gives to her Romanian friends when she gets asked about living and working in the Czech Republic.

The “consensus” is that the “proper” Czech or, rather, Czechoslovak films were made in the 1960s, like those of Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papoušek and Miloš Forman, with The Firemen’s Ball (1968), which combined the efforts of all three of them, at the centre of the Czech film pantheon. Regarding modern cinema, some attribute the problem to the concept of “village cinema” (ie, movies with the plot set in a village milieu), some to humour being used to water down the drama, and others to the tendency to hold on to the so-called “Švejk” stereotype when picturing the Czech mentality. Some find the position between the West and the East both a blessing and a curse. Most of the interviewees agree that the lack of originality and the attempts to make carbon copies of the role models coming from different sources, be it Hollywood or the Romanian New Wave, make contemporary Czech films lack authenticity.

Heck, even the idea for this survey-type documentary is not actually original: Wim Wenders did a similar thing at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival when he brought the available filmmakers to his hotel room and asked them about the future of cinema, which resulted in Room 666 (1982). Novák and Novotný do not conceal the fact that they were inspired by Wenders’ effort, which is fair, and they don’t explain how they chose their interviewees, which is also legitimate.

However, it seems that The Czech Film Project is a type of a documentary that feels best suited for internal use by Czech film institutions and the country’s film scene, as its topic may fail to engage wider audiences. But its simple concept could also be repeated, copied and applied to other environments.

A Film a Week - Endless Summer Syndrome / Le syndrome de l'été sans fin

 previously published on Cineuropa

There is no such thing as a perfect (family) life, only an illusion of it. Once cracks appear in the facade, that illusion is broken and dangerous secrets can surface. At least, that is the case with Kaveh Daneshmand’s debut feature, the domestic thriller Endless Summer Syndrome, which enjoyed its world premiere in the First Feature Competition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

It seems that the French family Denicourt has it all. The matriarch Delphine (Sophie Colon in a possibly breakthrough big screen role) works in high politics and gives lectures. Her husband Antoine (Mathéo Capelli, glimpsed in 13 Tzameti) is a writer with a stellar reputation. With their adoptive children, the introverted Aslan (co-writer Gem Deger) and the cheeky Adia (newcomer Frédérika Milano), they live in an idyllic countryside home where they enjoy endless summer days by the swimming pool, or at least intend to do so, since Aslan is bound to leave home and continue his studies in New York City.

However, one anonymous phone call changes everything. A woman on the other side of the line tells Delphine that Antoine admitted something to her when he was drunk, something quite inappropriate and involving one of their children. The call is clearly not part of a blackmailing scheme, though it might be someone’s twisted attempt to put pressure on the family, which would not be the first time. While Delphine trusts her husband and children, she knows that she cannot simply confront them with what she heard. So she starts “playing detective” to find out what is going on, which raises the tension and suspicions within the household. But the real question is whether she is ready for the truth she might find.

Although the setting is quite archetypal, the intervention that shakes its foundations a bit of a cliché, and the 3-act structure transparent despite all the ornamentation (such as flash-forwards to the police interviews), Endless Summer Syndrome is a film that grabs and holds the attention of the viewer for its entire duration. This could be thanks to the thorough writing work that went into creating the characters and their relationships, which establishes an environment for generally underused actors and newcomers to deliver compelling and memorable performances. For instance, Delphine being the lady of the house makes her a bit distant and strict, and the children more attached to Antoine than to her, but the love and the affection they share seems very real. Moreover, the mystery is well thought-out and timed for maximum dramatic effect and impact, although some of Daneshmand’s creative choices unveil elements of the truth too early and put too much emphasis on symbolism. This also makes the resolution of the plot a tad too neat and clean compared to the ethical “grey zone” and controversy that the film deals with.

On the level of craft, Endless Summer Syndrome is also impressive, polished work powered by smart decisions. The boxy 4:3 aspect ratio works equally well for the frequent close-ups and for the rare but powerful distant shots, while the summery, bright and saturated colour scheme of Cédric Larvoire’s cinematography stands in striking contrast with the film’s dark and controversial content. The editing by François and Pierrè’ Del Ray sometimes slips into the music video style, which is understandable considering the pulsating score by Matteo Hager and Jakub Trs.

Endless Summer Syndrome may not be perfect in absolute terms, but it is an outstanding debut that shows a lot of heart, a lot of thought and a lot of talent from the creative team, the cast and the crew.

A Film a Week - The Word / Slovo

 previously published on Cineuropa

Events from the past have a tendency to come back a long time after they originally happened, to haunt the next generations, or at least demanding to be remembered. In the context of the Czech Republic (and Slovakia), that event is the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which happened in 1968, and its aftermath. Every family probably has a story about 1968, and Beata Parkanová has just told us one in her second feature, The Word, which has premiered in the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s competition.

Václav Vojíř (Martin Finger, a veteran of Czech television who also collaborated with Parkanová on her 2018 debut feature, Moments) is a man of noble principles. He is a strict and meticulous law expert and a highly respected notary in an unnamed Czech town, as well as being an authority figure of sorts for its inhabitants. But his expertise, clean record and upstanding principles are not enough to secure his position, since he is not a member of the ruling Communist Party, and there is even a record of him having voted against the communists in 1946. The Party, represented by agents who visit his office to put pressure on him, states that Vaclav owes his entire career to it and its benevolence towards his “transgressions”.

Václav is, naturally, worried about his future, since he is living in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion, but his wife, Vera (Gabriela Mikulková, mostly active on television), stands firmly behind him, sacrificing her comfort to be the support he needs and to take care of their two children. Their friends advise them to “do the smart thing” and make a deal with the Party, because it is actually a minor nuisance, but Václav cannot betray his principles. He awaits his “punishment”, which could be having his licence revoked, being transferred somewhere else, or even being demoted to a menial job that he does not feel suited to doing – and the waiting could prove to be more like torture than the “sentence” itself.

Parkanová divides her film into long scenes: these dialogue-driven, somewhat static sequences are filmed in either longer, mid-to-long-distance shots or in a series of reverse shots, so The Word does not exactly give us a “cinematic” feeling all the time. The sense of watching a stage play is further amplified by the acting, which features heightened expressiveness and a slightly declamatory tone in the line delivery. Short intermezzos between the scenes, containing still photographs of the actors in their characters’ roles, provide a bit of relief from the heavy, gloomy atmosphere.

On a visual level, The Word looks a bit like a TV movie due to its unfiltered imagery drenched in natural colours and its slightly austere production design, in which the items of the present day are removed, but are not replaced with props from the period the film is portraying. However, for her part, Parkanová occasionally demonstrates that she has some interesting directing solutions, and cinematographer Tomáš Juriček is similarly resourceful with some of his attractive, ingeniously composed long shots.

In the end, The Word feels like a film made with a sincere motivation to tell the story. The trouble is that these stories have been told before, and so it could struggle to find an audience outside its specific region.