Jasny at AFA: Gladys

New York is the last frontier. Like Matthew Broderick’s character in Election, it is here that people come when they need a fresh start. For Czech filmmaker Vojtech Jasny, New York became his first real home after he found it prudent to relocate following the 1968 Soviet invasion of his homeland. Once in New York, Gladys St. John Colegrove, an elderly neighbor with reported psychic abilities would become part of his adopted family. She would also be the title subject of Gladys, a documentary assembled from footage Jasny shot on Hi-8 over the course of several years, which screens at AFA as part of their Jasny tribute.

Twice widowed, Ms. Gladys explains to Jasny that she has been in constant contact with her husbands from beyond the veil. It is clear that she misses them very much, particularly number one, St. John. Most of this contact seems to come through automatic writing, some of which was collected in a published book (Listening Across the Border, Vantage 1981, as Gladys St. John).

We see several birthday celebrations including the big 100 and after, so it is understandable that she is somewhat physically infirm. However, Jasny and his friends are able to coax her out of her apartment for the first time in twelve years for a walk in the park. It might sound trite, but she looks pretty good, all things considered. Despite her general frailty, she sounds feisty and opinionated when interviewed by Jasny’s friends and students. Her answers are not always politically correct either, sounding downright Lou Dobbsian on the subject of immigration.

While Gladys is very definitely about its central character, Jasny’s love for New York suffuses the film. During his introductory narration, Jasny states: “Here I soon lost my home-sickness that I couldn’t lose in Europe. New York became my passion.” Though seen obliquely, audiences get a sense that Jasny and his friends are smart, decent people, who genuinely care about their elderly neighbor.

Gladys nicely fleshes out AFA’s Jasny retrospective, giving a sense of his life in America. However, of the films playing in the series, it is probably the slightest. His classic narrative films, like All My Good Countrymen and Cassandra Cat in particular, should appeal to a wider audience. Still, Gladys is a pleasant look at the improvised families that make New York the capital of new beginnings. It plays at AFA this coming Sunday and Wednesday.

Jasny at AFA: Why Havel

Vaclav Havel’s longest stint in a Communist prison lasted about four and a half years. Nearly six years later he was elected President of Czechoslovakia in the country’s first free and fair election in over fifty years. Vojtech Jasny captured the exceptional role played by President Havel during those heady days of newly won freedom in his documentary Why Havel, screening as part of the upcoming Jasny retrospective at AFA.

How does a playwright become one of the world’s most respected statesmen? Jasny’s film literally asks why Havel, quickly answering its own question. We see candid footage of a President more comfortable laughing and joking with the kitchen staff than with the power and ceremonial trappings of office. A portrait emerges of a man of conscience, imprisoned for his activism and avant-garde writing, who earned the respect of both his dissident colleagues and his fellow citizens.

Why Havel begins with the President’s first state visit to America, attending an all-star tribute in New York at the Cathedral of St. John’s the Divine. Amongst those paying tribute are Joseph Papp, his American producer; director Milos Forman, Jasny’s celebrated colleague in the Czech New Wave; Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel; and musical guests, including Dizzy Gillespie (the rest of his band is not credited, but it looks like Mike Longo at the piano).

Jasny directs Forman as the film’s narrator and on-camera guide, who brings a great deal of charm to the role, sounding downright giddy at times. Considering the enormity of the changes under weigh, his euphoria is understandable. In one such exercise of the newly granted right to free speech, Forman mocks “the favorite pastime of the former rulers: giving each other medals—they loved it.”

Although there are some interesting transitions between scenes, Jasny seems much more interested in serving his subject than flexing his cinematic muscles. However, he clearly had remarkable access and a good amount of luck, filming Czech history as it happened.

Over the course of the film, Jasny and Forman give an unequivocal answer to the question why Havel. Only a man so uncomfortable with power could be trusted with it at such a delicate time in Czech history. Watching these events unfold through Jasny’s lens really is inspiring. While the Velvet Revolution was not so very long ago, many seem to have already forgotten its lessons, which is why Jasny’s film will always be a valuable document (that also happens to be quite entertaining). It screens at AFA this coming Saturday and Tuesday.

Jasny at AFA: Good Countrymen

Rural Moravia offered its citizens plenty of hard work, but a proud life, until Soviet-style collectivization ruined their dignified existence. This phenomenon is dramatized unforgettably in Vojtech Jasny’s All My Good Countrymen, re-examined here less than a week after the DVD review, because it soon screens in New York as part of Anthology Film Archives’ upcoming Jasny retrospective.

Countrymen could only have been produced under Communist rule during the relatively free Prague Spring interlude. After the Soviet tanks rolled in, Countrymen was banned, consigned to a vault (although contraband prints did circulate). Yet, as Countymen opens, hope is in the air. The National Socialist occupiers are gone, though the Communists are growing in influence. Seven friends make music and general merriment together after a hard day’s work. However, Ocenás the church organist has assumed a leadership role on the local party council, whose actions will soon divide the once jovial friends.

Played by Vlastimil Brodský, a frequent Jasny collaborator also seen in Cassandra Cat, Ocenás is a surprisingly complex character. He alienates the village priest by leading the church choir in subversive hymns referencing such ungodly subjects as evolution and the Communist Party. However, his fellow party bosses are only too willing to sacrifice him for their own ends, leading to tragic unintended (but still useful) consequences.

In contrast, Frantisek, a successful farmer and pillar of the community, has no time for politics or ideological cant. He is a farmer in his soul, which he refuses to sell to the party. At one point he bluntly tells a local party boss: “You treat people like animals.” A taciturn man who leads by example, Frantisek is the archetypal strong, silent hero—the salt of the Earth, almost literally.

While in many ways a pastoral, Countrymen is identified with the Czech(oslovakian) New Wave, and it often shows a kinship with the Nouvelle Vague. Particularly striking are Jasny’s use of freeze frames during several death scenes. It even veers into disconcertingly surreal territory as the villagers cavort in exaggerated animals masks for an unspecified celebration that suggests subtle hints of danger.

Jasny addresses agricultural collectivization and its consequences directly and uncompromisingly. When viewing Countrymen, it is hard not to think he is probably lucky to be alive after 1968. However, Countrymen is never a simple indictment, portraying its characters with great nuance, most particularly the problematic Ocenás. When watching Countrymen, it is easy to see why the Communists banned it—it is simply a great film. It screens at AFA this coming Friday, Saturday, and Thursday, with Jasny himself in attendance for the first screening.

Jasny at AFA: Cassandra Cat

From witches’ familiars to live action Disney films, cats endowed with supernatural powers are a long established archetype of story and legend. Such is also the case with Mokol, a bespectacled critter who disrupts the sleepy existence of a provincial Czech town in Vojtech Jasny’s Cassandra Cat. A leader of the Czech New Wave, Jasny is the subject of an upcoming Anthology Film Archives retrospective, beginning this Friday with Cat.

Part family fable and part surreal acid trip, Cat starts out conventionally enough, as Mr. Oliver, the town’s free spirit in charge of exposition introduces the audience to the cast of characters, including our protagonist, Robert, a humane, animal-loving art teacher, and the antagonist, his authoritarian principal, who happens to be an expert hunter who has largely stocked the town taxidermy museum with his kills.

Oliver, who later explains his mission in life is to fire the imagination of children, addresses Robert’s art class, telling a tall tale about a beautiful woman with a cat who wore eye-glasses. According to the old man, those glasses held in check a special ability the feline possessed: the power to turn people bright colors reflecting their true selves, yellow for the unfaithful, purple for liars, grey for thieves, and red for those in love.

Shortly thereafter, a rather eccentric troupe of vaudevillians and Dixieland musicians comes to town, led by a magician who looks exactly like Oliver. Accompanying him is a beautiful woman named Diana, who most definitely catches Robert’s eye, and Mokol, a cat wearing spectacles. During the company’s grand performance for the town, Mokol loses his glasses, and all chaos breaks loose, as the townsfolk become bathed in primary colors based on their inner beings. Smitten with Diana, Robert turns a deep Communist red. However, most of his neighbors reflect different colors.

Reacting with wild abandonment in the film’s trippy centerpiece scene, the townspeople break into a fantastical dance bordering on a riot. Mixing bold color, groovy jazz-like music, and choreography which alternates between telekinetic combat for the undesirable colors, and the Lindy hop for the joyous reds, Cat leaves Disney territory far behind in its rearview mirror.

Obviously, the problem is not the hypocrisy of the townspeople, but that darn cat. As Robert’s students conspire to protect Mokol, his boss leads the efforts to hunt him down. While Cat never explicitly addresses political issues (unless you consider Robert an early proponent of animal rights), it is always difficult not to graft allegorical meaning unto a film produced behind the Iron Curtain in which an authoritarian figure abuses his power until an everyman character stands up to him.

Usually surreal, hallucinogenic films are also dark and moody, but Cat is unusual in this regard. It is a bittersweet film that never loses its sense of innocence, despite the wild scenes from the town square. In the key role of the film, Vlastimil Brodský, best known as the remorseful party boss Ocenás in All My Good Countrymen, portrays Robert’s idealism with charm and genuine likability. Jasny deftly balances the fairy tale elements with his bold visuals, while never letting the film’s pacing flag. The only credibility problem for his fable is the children’s immediate devotion to Mokol, who seems rather lifeless, even with his shades and wardrobe. (It is hard to believe I am critiquing the performance of a cat, but there it is.) Still, the site of Robert’s students carrying Mokol around like the Art of the Covenant, as their elders dive into fountains and behind columns to escape his gaze is worth the price of admission.

Not to overuse the word “charm,” but Cat is totally charming. It is also visually inventive and a thoroughly satisfying cinematic experience. It plays at the Anthology this Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday, with the director himself in attendance on the 19th.

Jasny’s Good Countrymen

All My Good Countrymen
Directed by Vojtech Jasny
Facets

The four seasons loom large for a provincial Moravian farming village. However, it was roughly eight months of spring—the brief period of Czechoslovakian liberalization known as Prague Spring—that gave Czech auteur Vojtech Jasny a limited window of opportunity to make All My Good Countrymen, considered by many to be a masterwork of the Czech New Wave, but rarely seen due to Communist censorship.

Countrymen was completed shortly after the Soviet invasion of 1968 and banned shortly after its initial screenings. It is no secret why it ran afoul of the censors. As the tale of a peaceful Moravian community ripped apart by the devastating policies of agricultural collectivization, it is hard to think of a film more antithetical to Marxism produced behind the Iron Curtain.

As Countymen opens, hope is in the air. The National Socialist occupiers are gone, and though the Communists are growing in influence, Edvard Beneš is still the democratically elected president. Seven friends make music and carouse together after an honest day’s toil. However, Ocenás the church organist has assumed a leadership role on the local party council, whose actions will forever split the once merry friends.

Frantisek in contrast, has no time for politics or ideological cant. He is a farmer in his soul, which he refuses to sell to the party. At one point he bluntly tells a local party boss: “You treat people like animals.” A taciturn man who leads by example, Frantisek is not unlike the archetypal strong, silent heroes once played by Gary Cooper—the salt of the Earth, almost literally.

As Frantisek is imprisoned, debilitated nearly to the point of death, and eventually hounded to accept leadership of the disastrous collective, Countrymen becomes a grand tragedy, heightened by the elegiac narration. Jasny was inspired by gothic paintings and his sweepings landscapes truly have a painterly look. While Countrymen has a limited color palette, Jaroslav Kucera’s photography makes the farmland sparkle—making it easy to understand how Frantisek could be so emotionally tied to the earth he tills.

While in many ways a pastoral, Countrymen is identified with the Czech(oslovakian) New Wave, and it often shows a kinship with the Nouvelle Vague. Particularly striking are Jasny’s use of freeze frames during several death scenes. It even veers into disconcertingly surreal territory as the villagers cavort in exaggerated animals masks for an unspecified celebration (Christmas, Winter Solstice?) that suggests subtle hints of danger.

Jasny deftly elicited sensitive performances from his cast, particularly Vlastimil Brodský and Radoslav Brzobohatý as Ocenás and Frantisek, respectively. Both give nuanced performances as former friends seemingly opposed to each other, who both struggle with the decisions they face. Also notable is Vladimír Mensík as Jorka Pyrk, the Falstaffian town rogue, facing a prison sentence for undefined (at least to the audience) crimes.

It is easy to see why the Communists banned Countrymen—it is a great film. It speaks directly to the dire consequences of elevating ideology above humanity. Aside from a few bootleg copies circulated underground, it was locked in a vault from 1971 until the Velvet Revolution, so if you have not heard of it before, that was most certainly the intent. It deserves to reach a wide audience now that it is happily available on DVD from Facets. (It also screens next week in New York as part of a Jasny retrospective at the Anthology.) It is highly recommended.