Alois Nebel

Comic book adaptations come in many different forms. 1) Literally at the risk of not succeeding with anyone but fans of the source material (Watchmen); 2) Literally entertainingly, with a stellar cast and in such a way that you don't actually need to know the comic book (Sin City); 3) "Disrespectfully" by ripping out a few of the most appealing lines from the source material, which comic book fans will hate you for (From Hell)... And there is a fourth way, which is actually the same as the last one, but the effect is completely different - while the fans of the comic book will lie at your feet, the Czech mass audience, for whom you simplified everything, will not care about you. And this is the case of Alois Nebel. The creators of this great comic book really trimmed the living organism of (its) comic book to the max and filmed with only a skeleton left. But the skeleton is still nimble, still has something to say and plays out (un)pleasantly suggestive human fates on the screen(s). At one point it focuses on trauma, then wades into the black waters of utter hopelessness, from where it emerges into the light, which, however, may not always shine. As far as I'm concerned, I say that everything important that the comic says, the movie says. My only regret is the short runtime. If it had been twenty minutes longer, it would have carried a lot more of the ash cargo.__P.S. And yes, it looks great. (19/04/2012)

I could argue that the very unresolved relationships between the characters, and thus the incoherent tangles of their motivations, are the director’s intent, but I doubt that Negativ would pump $80 million crowns into a technically courageous animated film whose target audience can only be found in art house movie theaters. (30/12/2013)

A foggy film in every way. Whilst in terms of atmosphere and rendering of the environment of the "normalization shift", this fog is of benefit, but in terms of storytelling and characterization of the characters, there is more of it than is necessary. There's no clearer motivation, no continuity; in fact, the story is missing. It's clear to me that Jaromir 99's advertised "the fog fucks the forest" is fun when drinking a bottle of beer from the mountains, but you can't make 87 minutes of film out of it. Moreover, something is done wrong in the rotoscoping of the faces of the actors, because they look different all the time - sometimes the comic-book look suits them, sometimes they look like ugly painted faces on cardboard. I feel a certain sympathy for Alois Nebel because it tries to be a different Czech film (silent, allusive, based on the feeling from a place), but I can hardly forgive the film for not offering much besides effort. (28/09/2011)

I would like to go back to the original trilogy because otherwise, I have to say that the film Alois Nebel passed me by. The beauty of Prague's, formerly Wilson's, train station is unusually opulent and Krobot's minimalist acting is in perfect symbiosis with the pace of the narrative, but I miss the point of the memories of the German expulsion in 1945 and the present around 1989. (27/05/2012)

A grief-laden look back at Czech identity and history in the negatively formative period between 1945 and the early 1990s. It is simultaneously amazing and unfortunately sad that the most thought-provoking reflection on how this era shaped not only individual lives but also the identity and morality of the nation is provided by a unique animated project. (29/03/2020)