Klíček

The film, which deals with, among other things, torture, and its viewing, is in itself a kind of torture. Nevertheless, it is useful to watch it because it concentrates all the misery of Czech film productions in recent years. Desperate amateurism, a small budget that forces everything to be done as much as possible on the first try or with a minimum of shots, underestimation of the script, and amateur performances in the supporting roles. Ján Novák is one of those documentarians who think that making a fictional film cannot be fundamentally harder than making an average documentary, and so it simply doesn't work in practice. The worst thing about it is the pathetic attempt to sell the film as a certain settling of scores with the regime of the 1940s and 1950s, simply dealing with the Czech political past. The film doesn't aim for that, and in its own way, it's more like an attempt at a B-horror movie, where the director, however, has no experience and no idea how the genre works in practice. I'm mainly talking about the second half because the first half is just a nonsensically stretched-out prelude. The only sympathetic thing is the short runtime, which, however, stems from the screenwriter's helplessness. Perhaps worth mentioning is Přeučil, who as a professional doesn't act badly even in a decidedly bad film, and similar roles simply suit him. Overall impression: 5%. (10/19/2009)