Zelary Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)September 13th, 2004
ZELARY
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Sony Pictures Classics
Grade: B+
Directed by: Ondrej Trojan
Written by: Petr Jarchovsky from the novella "Jozova Hanule" by Kvita Legatova
Cast: Ana Geislerova, Gyorgy Cserhalmi, Jaroslava Adamova, Miroslav Donutil, Jaroslav Dusek
Screened at: Sony, NYC, 9/8/04
Imagine that you're living in Manhattan and your sense of adventure never goes beyond shopping at Citarella. The word comes out that there is a 100% certainty that a terrorist attack on New York will occur within a week; that all New Yorkers are urged to move for an indefinite amount of time high in the Appalachians. How would you cope? This gruesome possibility affords "Zelary" its contemporary relevance.
Cross our fingers that we'll never get to that point, but a reasonably close facsimile occurred in 1943 in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Eliksa (Ana Geislerova), a nurse in a Prague hospital who is unable to complete her medical studies because the Germans closed down the university, is romantically involved with a surgeon, Richard (Ivan Trojan). Both are members of the Czech resistance with Eliksa as a courier. When the Nazis get wise to the cell in which she operates, Richard flees the country while Eliksa, given a new identity as Hana, must give up her sophisticated city life and move to L'il Abner country in the Moravian highlands, but that's not all. She is compelled to marry Joza (Gyorgy Cserhalmi), a salt-of-the-earth Gary Cooper type, a much older man who was in Prague for treatment but who has always lived in the mountains.
There the tradeoff begins. While the air is apparently pure and the country vistas breathtaking in their beauty, Hana must become accustomed to a Spartan cabin with no electricity, to an outhouse instead of her flush toilet in Prague, and most of all to a hill person with whom she has little in common and against whom she hides a pair of scissors under her pillow. But when Joza shows her the respect she deserves, even asking "May I touch you" some time after their marriage of convenience, she begins to fall in love. Familiarity breeds content, or as the Japanese used to say, marry first, learn to love later.
Director Ondrej Trojan, working with Petr Jarchovsky's screenplay which in turn is inspired by a true story found in Kvita Legatova's novella "Jozova Hanule," has a keen eye for country living. While he spends virtually no time in Prague thereby blurring the contrast between Eliska's urban life and rural Eden, he shows us in the audience what it's like to go hillbilly. We can virtually taste (with a look of horror) the gruel served for breakfast at which even Joza's Bernese Mountain Dog turns up his capacious nose. When Eliska/Hana accidentally breaks the lamp, the couple are without light until a new fixture can be scrounged up. Instead of a Jacuzzi, Hana must content herself with dabbing water from a basin–that is, until Joza discovers water on the land and harnesses it for a shower, heating it with the logs he chops down regularly. Worst of all, not all the Czechs, even under duress, act like blood brothers. A drunken, undisciplined partisan militia mistakenly shoots the village priest, mistaking him for a German while a local man engages in rape of one of his own people. A young boy, beaten to a pulp by his father, lives in a hole, one not as deep, however, as Saddam's recent residence.
For better or worse, this story, photographed nicely by Asen Sopov, is told in the old-fashioned way...no flashbacks, no MTV editing, no car crashes...with just a couple of token scenes depicting what the Nazi troops do with those in the town who hide partisans. Much of the tale is told in real time, better to appreciate the conventions of mountain living. The big question, one which is cleverly resolved in "Zelary," is: what's to become of Eliska and Joza when the war is over? Will Joza give up the lifestyle he loves and move to Prague? Will Eliska chuck her ambitions to go to medical school and spend her life with the man she now loves?
The war exists principally to further the plot since few emergencies would have prompted Eliska to leave her city- mouse ways behind. "Zelary" is primarily a romance, an effective one at that, told with sincerity, affection for the Czech people (or at least some of them), and is the product of a good soul.
"Zelary" was Oscar-nominated for best foreign film of 2003.
Not Rated. 150 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten
at harveycritic@cs.com
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
