Matty

Thank God for the youngbloods of Czech cinema, who are not afraid to go beyond the boundaries of good taste, to break with narrative conventions and to step out of restrictive genre pigeonholes. Kotek’s way of telling a story does not in any way conceal the fact that Chasing Fifty is based on a stage play of the same name. He goes against the trend of increasingly frenetic entertainment, instead basing most of the film on a conversation between three men in a single mountain cottage. We learn everything we need to know from the words that we hear. Vilma Cibulková’s parallel trip to the aforementioned cottage ingeniously raises the false expectation that the two storylines will be more tightly intertwined and continuously complement each other. Instead, they come together only at the end, so that the individual stages of the woman’s journey end up being only distracting red herrings. Similarly, the flashbacks – in which there are very unconventional (almost avant-garde) temporal relationships – do not coalesce into a coherent whole, but serve mainly as a redundant illustration of what we hear. This is an inspiring example of hypermediation, in which the old medium does not merge with the new, but comes to the fore (theatrical rigidity, a transparent attempt to keep the characters in an enclosed space for as long as possible, the doubling of a single message by depicting it in both words and images). The film’s creators take an obliging approach to the scattered attention of television viewers by giving preference to a sitcom-style plot composed of loosely connected gags over a more cohesive causal interconnectedness. Thanks to its disregard for narrative logic and rejection of any consistency in the characters’ actions, the film is enjoyably unpredictable. Another unexpected aspect is the abrupt changes in tone along the lines of the “anything goes” approach of modern eclectic artists. The filmmakers are not afraid to cross the high with the low, laughter with tears, blood with semen. Humorous scenes reminiscent of animated slapstick – including the Mickey Mousing that another progressive Czech filmmaker, Zdeněk Troška, likes to use – are juxtaposed with, for example, a scene in which one of the characters has his skull punctured and his leg stabbed (so badly that he loses it). Kotek and Koleček also refused to give in to the unwritten demand for a more sensitive portrayal of a bygone era that would not turn normalisation into an ostalgic open-air museum of crazy hairstyles, knitted sweaters, tight trousers and Polish condom vending machines. For them, the Communist era is only about the surface, because dealing with politics in the post-modern era without grand narratives is passé anyway. The playful caricature of normalisation corresponds to the film’s concept of itself as a self-assured generational manifesto that ridicules the past regime and adults – the older characters are either hysterical and clumsy (Kateřina), pedantic, heartless and inconsiderate (Pavko) or an outright psychopath who “reads” animal entrails instead of newspapers (Kuna). Both the younger and older characters are defined by a single characteristic, in that they are one-dimensional types, which fits well with the exaggeratedly comedic tone of some scenes and contrasts nicely with the attempt at nostalgically touching tragedy found in other scenes. However, I consider the film’s consistent antifeminism to be its most daring departure from the dominant current of contemporary genre cinema. Chasing Fifty is subversive in its conservative chauvinism, its guyish “highlander” humour about women, homosexuals (who drink cranberry juice) and the disabled. There is not a single positive, let alone active female character who acts of her own accord (rather than out of a desire to please men). Rather, the women in the film are lustful sexualised objects who can be happy that someone wants to have sex with them (and thus drive their sadness out of their bodies). In the deluge of films celebrating the awakening of female power, this is truly very refreshing. I look forward to seeing what the promising screenwriter, who has previously shown an extraordinary understanding of the female spirit (Icing), will surprise us with next. I am equally curious as to how Kotek will further develop the humorous motifs from the film that made him an idle to teenage girls (in comparison with Snowboarders, Chasing Fifty is different in that, for example, sex sometimes leads to the conception of a child, so the characters don’t just figure out who slept with whom, but also who is whose son/father/brother).

Or Laďa Kerndl’s trip to Banat in Romania. In terms of its aesthetics and content, St. Helen’s Island  fits perfectly with the tabloid portraits of celebrities (or rather those who would like to be famous for a moment longer), but a more precise genre classification isn’t so simple and probably even its creators are not sure about that. For a psychological drama, it is a shamefully simple work – the protagonist does not undergo any change and, at the end, he seems just as incapable of living without his personal chef and laundress as he did at the beginning. As a special episode of a TV travel show, which the middle part of the film closely resembles, it is incredibly drawn out, as if – in the interest of Czech-Romanian friendship – its creators did not want to cut out a single shot of the landscape or a single deep truth uttered by a village elder. This programme filler is tolerable thanks to its length, endearingly lousy scenes such as Kerndl versus the pizza with ketchup and the thrilling anticipation of Vilhelmová finally appearing as promised by the credits. 30%

The idea of two women in one body could surely be used for a heart-rending (without irony) narrative about how difficult it is for a teenage girl to be herself, trust her feelings and not cling to the surface. But that didn’t happened. What did happen is a kitschy, embarrassingly literal knock off of the New Hollywood drama Wanda and, at the same time, an apt product of the society of spectacle in which even one’s soul has to be visualised to please the eye. After most of this remarkably undramatic film, the protagonist of The Host (shouldn’t it rather be The Hostess?) journeys through her own inner world, while the “rational” male characters have to help her find her bearings because of her emotional instability. It wouldn’t matter how little happens over the course of two hours in this film (the “feminine” failure to take action could serve as evidence of ideological subversiveness) if the ideas on which it is based weren’t so extremely stupid. Not only are the anxieties of post-modern society (xenophobia, the need to return to the simplicity of western myths, the emotional aloofness of world inundated with technology, the escape from the global to the local) presented in a midcult wrapper without anything disturbing (when blood appears, it’s a minor holiday), but the filmmakers immediately offer us banal solutions that only support the false illusion that there really is no cause for concern and it suffices if we all love each other and multiply. For each of the few positives (a couple of impressive shots, a hint of a visual concept, the doctor that looks like Obama), there are at least five times as many reasons why it would be better to avoid this offensively flat story about the emotional disjointedness of teenagers (the robotic acting not only by the aliens but also by the Earthlings, no progressive build-up, no suspense, several endings and, mainly, the persistent feeling that someone is trying to make a big damned mountain out of a molehill). Appendix: Fans of Twilight can feel free to ignore my review and rating. 30%

For film masochists, A Star is Falling Upwards is an almost deliciously exhausting substitute for western musicals that makes a terribly transparent attempt to make Karel Gott a “regular guy”. As a naïve and good-natured boy from the countryside, the protagonist has to understand that his purpose in life is not to sing for money, but for the Czech people (who don’t have any money). What he lacks in intellect, he makes up for with monumental narcissism, which we apparently are not supposed to see as a character flaw. And we probably aren’t expected have a negative view of the fact that everything good happens to the minimally enterprising protagonist without any effort on his part (he doesn’t need vocal coaching, as he got his divine voice from the Fates, and he becomes a superstar thanks to a donated vest). Achieving success is a matter of chance, not diligent effort. Anyone can be Gott. And it’s good to be Gott! Because it basically doesn’t matter how credulous, hypocritical and dim-witted you may be or how huge your ego has become, if you’re Gott, you will be forgiven for everything. The strait-laced nationalism is legitimised through the creation of the illusion that Gott, as a modern-day Schwanda the Bagpiper, is following an ancient folk tradition. As a singer of the people (and thus of the party), he should do the same thing that was asked of all citizens – give up your ambitious goals and sit on your ass at home. The film thus indirectly expresses contempt for all artists who sold out to the West, which is hastily outlined as a land of decadent banquets at which half-nude men dance wildly with shameless women. This is only one of a few unintentionally WTF moments of an otherwise absolutely uninterestingly bad film, by means of which Rychman committed creative suicide and Gott demonstrated his willingness to engage in the lowest form of intellectual kitsch. 15%

A rape revenge comedy into which Alexander Hemala oozed from somewhere on the bottom, along with paedophile sex and black magic (“you put a hex on the city!”). A dud that’s just as blatantly idiotic and atrociously tasteless as the films from the early years of Normalisation, but with food-porn delicacies such as Magnusek heating up sausages and Magnusek eating a cream puff. It’s enough to make a nutritionist choke on their organic granola. 20%

Jiří Menzel is clearly an old lecher (fantasising about how young ladies willingly let themselves be groped by worn-out Don Juans) who likes zoom shots and women with large breasts, but not modern styles. That’s all well and good, but did he have to make a tasteless, humourless and unfocused feature-length film about it? Contact with the present is limited to the resigned statement “that’s just how it goes here” after the protagonist’s car is stolen right before his eyes. In short, everything is bad (because of the communists and privatisation), the world is going to hell and there is nothing we can do about it. So, let’s fuck! The sole characteristic of the female characters under the age of 40 is lasciviousness – with no inhibition or hesitation, each of them sleeps with the old, uncharismatic and unpromising theatre director. The only more distinctive, older female character is mentally ill (e.g. for no apparent reason, she steals and wrecks a car used in a bank robbery as it is happening), which, according to the film, is fine and that’s perhaps how post-menopausal women ordinarily behave. In terms of its narrative, the film is inconsistent in how it randomly changes perspective and the extent of knowledge and self-awareness (the non-conceptual use of statements directly to the camera are a gratuitous attempt to give the film a touch of modernity). The film’s dramaturgical impotence is manifested in the fact that no  matter how long it takes for something to happen, ultimately nothing happens with respect to the narrative. Most (!) of the scenes could have been cut out of the film without affecting the main storyline, since those scene neither cause nor condition anything, nor do they contribute to the development of the story. The film’s humour consists in, for example, someone bashing their head against a beam or throwing out their back. Conversely, if the film is supposed to get serious, someone necessarily has to die – no other reason for being serious is even considered. I can leniently look at this lewd defence of voyeurism only as a substitute for sexual activity at a later age, when it’s no longer really possible. It is obvious that The Don Juans was made for no other reason than the need to just make SOMETHING. 10%

A dramaturgically catastrophic macho melodrama (with elements of comedy, thriller, softcore porn, war movie, caper flick and psychological drama). It’s not as if the subject matter would make it difficult to construct a coherent story. That is made entirely impossible by the selection and arrangement of information. Based on the large number of “unexpected” revelations in the final act, the viewer’s experience should consist in enjoyment from how everything fits together, not in the numerous ambiguities (Lousy Bastards by no means exhibits the hallmarks of an art film). However, the curt, often downright imbecilic behaviour of the protagonist (Mádl’s idiot behaves the most humanely in the end) and the high concentration of unlikely coincidences do not retrospectively gain any meaning as new information is revealed. Similarly, we ultimately don’t learn the most important things, which are usually good to know from the beginning of a film – e.g. what the characters care about and what their motivations and goals are – so that it’s not just episodic rambling. It’s not clear whether this was supposed to be a story of revenge (but why is it carried out so belatedly – and on a rabbit?), a story depicting the psychological instability of returning soldiers (otherwise, what purpose is the Afghan storyline supposed to serve?), or a picture of the lives of young people in today’s Prague (what other purpose do the events tied exclusively to Voříšková, Mádl and Hádek serve?). Though something is always happening in the film thanks to the psychopathy of most of its characters, the individual events are only tossed together rather than being woven into a logically cohesive whole. Unless all of the action takes place in an alternate universe where – SPOILER ALERT – it is normal to try to shoot your partner before carrying out a planned heist, where a woman suspects she is pregnant a few hours after having intercourse (and if more time has passed between said intercourse and the telephone call with Langmajer, the film gives us no reason to think so), where you try to beat your own brother to death after he sleeps with a woman whom he didn’t know was your girlfriend (and who is thus rather more to blame for being unfaithful), where rain washes away all that is bad and makes two adversaries forget all previous wrongs. The muddled structure and unjustified stylistic bombast (which can be understood as healthy exaggeration only during the Michael Bay-esque chase scene in the centre of Prague) only draw attention away from the banality of the story’s core, the dreadful overacting and the incredible conceptual perversity. The filmmakers’ complete lack of good judgment is most apparent in the macho presentation of men as killing machines and sex machines. The younger women are endlessly horny eye candy, offering their bodies to practically anyone at any time without hesitation; the sole older woman talks only about how she is preparing to die. Perhaps it’s because I don’t watch many Czech films, but I haven’t seen anything this repulsively phallocentric in a long time. The biggest cinematic offence of the year so far. 5%

The bears are cute, but having recently finished reading No Logo by Naomi Klein, I can’t give this any other rating.

A comedy of extraterrestrial origin, made by beings who have no idea that there should be at least elementary causality between adjoining shots; that the behaviour of the characters, if they are at least reasonably intelligent human individuals, usually exhibits a certain amount of logic; or that comedy should elicit laughter rather than the urge to destroy the TV screen with a hammer and sweeten your coffee with arsenic. But seriously – WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT??? 10%

I am not able to rate this film, but I basically don’t have a problem with the statement of a man who summed it up after a midnight screening with the sentence, “Definitely better than Cries and Whispers.”