NinadeL

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.

I can well imagine that on paper it must have looked like fun. The half-naked protagonist gets into more and more trouble in a villa full of wild Italians, one of whom is Marcello. Unfortunately, the premise of a comedy remained on paper, and if I'm in the mood for a good silly comedy, I'd obviously choose Forbidden Love over What?

Werner Herzog’s Ten Thousand Years Older - a documentary from the primeval forest. Jim Jarmusch's Int. Trailer Night - a nice B&W interlude between filming, a nice contrast between the present and the actress dressed in 1920s clothes. Wim Wenders’ Twelve Miles to Trona - a dynamic car journey through the Californian desert.

Another Zanussi journey into the depths of the soul of a Polish university student. In The Structure of Crystal, I found it almost charming, in The Illumination somewhat destructive and audience-unfriendly to the point of being unacceptable. And here? The protective coloring may have a noble tendency, but if one is engaged in studying oneself, one could take a very, very negative attitude toward academia. Indeed, it could cause one moral unease.

Jean-Marc Barr is a typical face from von Trier's films and the protagonist of The Big Blue, and as such he has a lot to say and convey. I wouldn't say the same about his film American Translation. It is as if the message is sewn to the film with a hot needle. The entire film is bathed in unexciting nudity and drowned in adolescent feelings of desire.

Is this a meditation on the two forms of love from Kieślowski's series on the Ten Commandments? Well, if you enjoy it. There are more problematic levels, for example, the parallel with Rear Window - I wonder why? Then, of course, are the interpretations of the motivations of the individual characters, whether the love brought about and forced by the suicide attempt has any value at all. There’s no satisfactory result and instead just the establishment of banality from the landscape of adolescence. Is it necessary to feel guilty if one does not love the one who would wish it? It is not necessary to go into this problem in depth on the basis of a biblical series.

The problem with the evaluation of Short Films probably lies in the inconsistency with the idea of retelling the story of the Ten Commandments in the modern sense of the Polish present of the 1980s. Is there anything beneficial in pointing out basic human weaknesses again? Or anything revealing and new? Here again, for example, we illustrate "thou shalt not kill" and that's all we've done.

I would never say that I would rate Eisenstein's film with the word nice, and yet here, everything is nice. A nice and clear medieval setting, a straightforward and unambiguous hero, a clear problem, a nice story in the side storyline even with a female action protagonist... and I could go on and on praising every element of this lovely little play. The music is greatly aided by the editing track, which straightforwardly tells the tale of how evil German knights (with dramatic music) want to conquer Russia (a playful musical motif). Yes, the battle will not be fought without human casualties, but love and goodness will triumph over lies and hatred and be resolved. Why complicate it when it's so nice?

A melancholic remembrance of the greatest of the greatest. What was always great about Vláčil was that he did not belong to the famous class of Otakar Vávra at The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts, but he came to his craft in his own way through a renaissance combination of knowledge of art and diligence. And he left with honor.

Another episode of the Czech Příběhy slavných series. The elusiveness of Evald Schorm's character, life, and work is hinted at. I really missed Jana Brejchová's memories, and Jan Kačer had to finish the whole thing for her. Everything else is overly routine. I would ideally replace the attempt to gain insight into the soul with more facts at the expense of popular impressionology.