Ita Rina – Filmska zvezda, ki je zavrnila Hollywood

The charming Ita Rina is magically appealing to many involved in film history. I have heard many opinions over the years. From the classic disdain (actors are not important and actresses are not important at all) to a light interest, which inspired few to seek out her films made outside of Prague studios. In Slovenia, however, she is finally and rightly getting a major documentary and is gaining a status similar to Pola Negri in Poland, for example. We follow her story that has so much in common with an entire generation of her peers. These are stories full of beauty pageants, cosmopolitanism, and a career defined by a relationship with German cinema. There is of course also love (she got married in the same year as Jarmila Novotná, which also complicated many things for her), and the pre-war and post-war fates (although she did not get engaged during the war, and after the war, she was rejected for belonging to the pre-war generation). In this respect, the documentary is very ambitious - it tries to illustrate all the metropolises Ita has passed through, sometimes more successfully, sometimes less so (the ineffective overuse of Prague, for example, or the passing off of the interior of the Ponrepo movie theater as something else entirely). But most fundamentally, especially in the Prague context, a number of factual errors remained (Vera Baranovskaja did not actually star in the film...and life goes on...) and the issue of the onset of sound was not properly grasped. We don't know, for example, which film was her first sound film, as the question of accent is marginalized (although it was a crucial issue for her peers). If it is further said that the first rejection by Hollywood came to nothing because she made a film with Medeotti Boháč and he does not have a good reputation in the classical overview of Czech directors, it would be necessary to at least give it some context. It also raises a rather fundamental question, in which films did Ita actually play the lead roles? Only in the Czech ones? In some of the others from the 1930s? This is not sufficiently answered, as it would open up another topic to relativize her stellar career. If Ita is presented here as a star who was repeatedly asked by Hollywood (but in her early days, when she was still one of many) it wouldn't sound so elegant if it was at a time when she was not a permanent representative of starring roles. Something is implied, but one has to remember that the Hollywood offers to European actresses in the interwar period can be counted in the hundreds, if not more, and the number of those who refused is just as high as those who were not successful and returned (Lilian Harvey is quoted, notably, whom Ita met in Babelsberg during her first rehearsals). If the significantly successful Marlene Dietrich or the generation younger Hedy Lamarr are mentioned, they are incomparable cases. In any case, the materials and samples from which the documentary is compiled are absolutely excellent, and will be appreciated especially by a researcher who has been working on the topic for years. The statements of the interviewees are always up for debate, and it would not hurt to work more with their relation to Ita to make the message more transparent. But of course, the pros outweigh the cons, and if the film is available other than at one screening in Ponrepo (which had technical glitches so typical of any showing in this movie theater), it will only be a good thing. (06/24/2017) (less) (more)