Zelary
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Movie Reviews of Zelary
Movie Review: Czech Republic is the Star of this Film
Summary: 5 Stars
Who has peeked inside Czech Republic since the Oscar winning Kolya? This weekend we rented the movie a recent Czech film, Zelary (rhymes with celery). The Czech Republic is the star; this film really shows her off: the mountains, wildflowers, colors of changing seasons, snow.
Zelary looks back, with nostalgia, on the transition between WW II Gestapo control of the country and the Russian takeover. A short period of time existed between the two regimes. I can only imagine the impetus to make this film was for it to be a cultural reminder to the people of Czech Republic. It asks the big questions: Who are we? Were did we come from? Where might we be going?
Short synopsis from metaphor point-of-view: Female sexuality holds center stage and works as a metaphor for the Czech Republic itself. Within the feminine element the film plays out bigger themes of birth and death, oppression and freedom, tenderness and brutality, fidelity and betrayal, and most provocatively, the urban and rural.
The film begins with an "urban" sex scene set in a modern apartment with streamline furniture, lots of books, records and record player, leather chairs, satin sheets. Eliska, an OR nurse, and Richard, a surgeon, are active in the resistance movement. Both are well educated, well-groomed, wealthy, have attractive bodies lovely undergarments, and all of their teeth. They make love to a jazz recording.
Cut to an hour later when Eliska has sex with a country man, Joza. To save her own life and to hide from the Nazi Gestapo, Eliska marries Joza but consummation takes weeks--or maybe months. Eliska must embrace the countryside and with it her man. Though Eliska softens up, Joza still smell bad to her. If he wants her, he has to take a bath in the new wooden tub and use soap.
The rural lovemaking happens in a bed, as in the first scene. The mountain coupling is very tender and long-awaited rather than impulsive and without a clear understanding of the relationship between the man and woman. Eliska and salt-of-the-earth Joza snuggle down in an overstuffed feather bed with a rough frame and flannel sheets. Their cabin has a dirt floor, no electricity, a few pots and pans, and a midget-sized door they have to stoop under to enter.
After she falls deeply in love with Joza, Eliska is raped in a sauna by a local drunk who threatens to expose her past political activities to the Gestapo and therefore jeopardize everyone in the village who might have helped her hide. There are more brutal rapes: a mountain woman is dragged off by a troop of German Gestapo who have just killed her family because they supported partisans. When the Russians arrive after the Germans are defeated, they go on a rape rampage.
In Zelary, men are the protectors of the culture, the country, the women. Men also threaten the safety and dignity of the women. They are surgeons, priests, farmers, soldiers, foreigners, and countrymen. At the film's beginning, when the resistance leaders send Eliska off with the saw mill man, they tell her: "Joza is a good man. He will die for you."
Die he does. When the Russians are on their rape and pillage rampage, Joza risks his life to gather the lost and stranded members of his village and shepherd them to a safe spot. By accident, he is shot by his own villager. His death frees the woman.
Off screen Eliska returns to the city, completes her medical training, and becomes a doctor.
The last moments of Zelary are profoundly touching. Four or five years later, together with Richard (the surgeon from the first sex scene), Eliska returns to what remains of the mountain village. The only person still living in the hills, it the old `witch doctor' who wears a babushka and traditional country clothes. She is the woman who birthed babies, gathered herbs, and prepared the dead. The old and new women embrace.
Movie Review: An Epic Story of Love and Survival in Times of War
Summary: 5 Stars
ZELARY is a brilliantly written (adapted from a novel by Kveta Legatura), grandly and sensitively directed (by Ondrej Trojan) epic from the Czech Republic that deserves the attention of a wide audience. It ranks in the realm of 'Doctor Zhivago', 'The English Patient', 'Charlotte Grey', and other big films about the struggles of love and living in the time of WW II.
Eliska (the delicately, radiantly beautiful Anna Geislerova) is a well-to-do medical student in 1940, in love with a doctor but also committed to the Czech Resistance Movement against the Nazis. The war closes in on her and her friends and she is forced to abruptly leave the life and status she has loved to avoid capture by the Gestapo. Reluctantly she agrees to leave with a humble sawmill worker Joza (Gyorgy Cserhalmi) from a remote town called Zelary. Joza is recuperating from war wounds and was tended by Eliska in the hospital. The plan is to have Eliska 'marry' Joza as cover and hide in Zelary until it is safe to return.
At first Eliska is appalled by the barebones existence she finds in Zelary and is repulsed by the idea of blending in, an idea which extends to marrying Joza. But gradually Eliska (now under the pseudonym Hana) grows to appreciate the simplicity of life in Zelary and even falls in love with Joza. She lives in the beautiful hills of Slovakia in a simple paradise, becoming an intricate member of this tiny town. The Nazis discover the hiding place but Joza and her townspeople successfully hide her. At last the war is ending and Russian soldiers come to free the fears of the townsfolk of Zelary. Situations occur that make the 'liberators' seem no different than the oppressors, and the film ends with Eliska/Hana's life forever changed.
The acting from the large cast is uniformly excellent, from the children to the old folk. The settings are brilliantly photographed and the lighting, costumes, music, and direction are of the highest order. While this is an unabashedly romantic film, it never forgets to pause for moments of universal truths about mankind's interactions and dreams and the survival of love against horrendous odds. This is a superb film, over two and a half hours in length, which never loses your urgent interest for a moment. Highly Recommended. In Czech, Russian, and German with subtitles. Grady Harp, February 2005
Movie Review: Love is where you find it
Summary: 5 Stars
Recently, I've particularly enjoyed a couple of films that I'd characterize as "chick flicks". ZELARY is the most recent, following on SHALL WE DANCE. I should schedule an appointment with my Family Practice witchdoctor to have my hormone levels checked. I'll know I'm in dire straits if I become addicted to the Home and Garden TV channel.
It's Nazi-occupied Prague in 1943. Young Eliska (Anna Geislerová) is a nurse in one of the city's hospitals and lover to one of its staff surgeons. In her spare time, she's a courier for the local Resistance. When one of the network is captured by the Gestapo, it's decided to evacuate Eliska to the mountain hamlet of Zelary accompanied by one of its residents, Joza (György Cserhalmi), a much older man that Eliska recently nursed back to health after his injury in a sawmill accident. So that her sanctuary in the village seems natural, and in order that she be accepted by the other inhabitants, Eliska and Joza wed. For the city-bred and sophisticated Eliska, her marriage in this rustic place is hardly an act of love. While Jozy is a good and kind man, he's also a rural bumpkin, who lives in a dirt-floor cabin without electricity, running water, or an indoor loo; he doesn't even take regular baths.
As you would correctly infer from the title of this review, this alliance of necessity turns into a love affair. The charm of this beautifully photographed film is that the story unfolds without the saccharine sweetness of a fairy tale romance. Indeed, after two years in the mountains, by which time the area is, um, "liberated" by advancing Soviet troops, Eliska experiences both the sublime and sordid facets of human communal existence anywhere. An ending perhaps more tragic than the true romantic would prefer doesn't negate the fact that the story illustrates the old saw that "love is where you find it", and that in anyone's past there may be a time span and experiences that add to his/her character depths that are unplumbable to current friends and lovers.
All of the acting performances in ZELARY were excellent, and that of Cserhalmi as the simple, salt-of-the-earth Joza was especially engaging. ZELARY was a viewing pleasure that I didn't want to end. And if that doesn't indicate a five-star film, then I don't know what does.
Movie Review: Heros and Villans
Summary: 5 Stars
I rented this film on the basis of a thumb-nail description of the plot. I'm glad that I did because "Zelary" is a quality movie. I had guessed that it was a Serbian film but I'm guessing it is a Slovakian (Czech?) film and that we were looking at rural life in the Carpathian Mountains during WWII. We discover early on that our heroine is knowingly involved in the underground/resistance in Prague. However, she didn't seem to have counted the cost because when something goes wrong, she's wisked away to safety off into the mountains. This was not her idea and she did what she could to reverse her fortune until it was finally spelled out for her. To be able to blend in to the tight mountain community, it is necessary for her to marry an older man she met in a hospital in Prague. That's as far as I dare go into the plot. The events and personalities that emerge from this 2 1/2 hour film make for a very engrossing movie. Naturally the concept of Nazi occupation (these folks are not Germans as they are quick to point out) adds a degree of suspense. The idea that our young heroine is in hiding expands on that suspense. However, there are other sources of suspense, excitement, humor, love, understanding etc. The relationship between the newlyweds naturally takes the forefront of the film. However, the supporting cast is very good and their roles and escapades make for a well-rounded movie.
The ending builds to a crescendo that leaves us rather emotionally drained (we're pretty involved with these folks by that point in the movie). The final scene was interesting. Maybe it was the fact that my surround sound was working well last night but I was captivated by the background music. It certainly enhanced the moods the film emoted. I also couldn't get over my impression that the leading man looked like a middle-aged Hugh Hefner on a moderate diet of steroids. There are a few times when I might have been as bewildered as our runaway bride but everything eventually comes together. If there was an overall message to be gained from "Zalary", I would guess it was, "You never know who your heros or villans will end up being". The cinematography alone is worth the price of admission.
Movie Review: How many great Czech films are on your list?
Summary: 5 Stars
The only ones I had before watching "Zelary" were "Closely Watched Trains" and "Shop on Main Street". To it I can now add Ondrej Trojan's moving, visually stunning film.
I have to admit, I didn't quite get why this woman had to go stay in a remote mountain village. Maybe I was too engrossed in seizing up the pacing, camera angles, scoring, etc. I try to appraise the formal elements, to be conscious of a film as a product from the first viewing. If one is able to maintain critical distance over the entire length of a film either one has supernatural powers of abstraction (and low empathic capacity) or the film is a failure for not breaking down those barriers and drawing one into the conflicts being suffered by the characters.
I'm happy to report that "Zelary" sneaked past my censor and into my heart rather easily. Anna Geislerová and György Cserhalmi are "fine specimens" and have what it takes to draw one in as actors. Cserhalmi is a massive, even fearsome presence as Joza, while Geislerová's Eliska, delicate and almost elfin beside him, knows how to withhold herself in a tantalizing way. Unlikely as the potential couple seemed (there is an almost 30 year difference between the actors), I found myself wishing something deep would develop between them. When it does it feels like the proverbial 'coincidence of opposites'.
I hesitate to use "epic" to describe "Zelary", as epic usually indicates a film that goes on too long and skimps on the intimacy that character development requires. Though the film can be acquitted of the latter charge, there does come a point in the film where the story seems sprawl just a bit, attenuating the dramatic/thematic unity. The scene at the end in which Joza (spoilers ahead!) is shot amidst all the turmoil does not pack the dramatic punch it could have, being somewhat heavy-handed. A small blot on an otherwise engrossing, beautiful and at times harrowing film.
Though maybe not quite on par with August's "Pelle the Conqueror" or Lelouch's "Les Miserables", "Zelary" definitely belongs in the company of such historical epics.