Želary (2003)

Zelary is captivating and draws you in from the onset and has many of the hallmarks of good cinema. That is precisely the problem when a prolonged and very difficult scene of violence smacks you upside the head. It's true and well known that sexual violence often accompanies war and it's important to acknowledge that horrific aspect of conflict to understand how innocent people can be spared the wrath of traumatized soldiers. This film seems to be trying to make commentary about this vile part of war through the perspective of the protagonist, but fails in that the sheer length, graphic nature, and intensity of the scene make for agonizing viewing. The depictions of rape are not helpful in making a point nor are they necessary for this film and actually ruin the experience. Not a movie I can recommend.

There are dozens of redeeming qualities in this excellent Czech film, not the least is a feeling for a living village populated with actual people, certainly a result of dedicated ensemble acting; the film also imparts a sense of the natural beauty too often defiled by man's obsession with power and war (much in the manner of Terence Malick, but less oblique), and the cameos by both old and young and old actors create wonderful funny and touching moments.A woman is forced by circumstances to abandon city sophistication--a lover, smart clothes, new American music--and without much choice must marry a weathered old woodsman she earlier helped save from death...one can surely predict much of the outcome, but not the vivid scenes in the local school, or mill, or the hiding place in the swamp; this is a rich film with very good things to say about adaptation and learning--the ending is certainly problematic, and did not have to be all sweetness and light--but certainly it would have been surprising to delve into alternate solutions other than the director's final choice; otherwise, highly recommended!

The DVD contained an addition about making of the movie. A few items of interest - the main characters were of different language groups and could not in fact communicate as the film was made - the woman Czech I think, the man Hungarian. The film took aver a year to film, so that the change of seasons could be shown and so that the young characters, so important to the film in general, could believably age. The actors ranged in age from 6 days - the birth scene - to 92 - the old woman in the early scene when the Resistance drop failed I think.My wife's comment that it reminded her of Cold Mountain rings true, as others have noted.

"Zelary" follows Eliska, a beautiful, young Czech woman through the course of her life during WWII as she is torn from her nursing work and antifascist movement support in the city to be secreted in a rustic mountain community where she finds herself having to cope with the tribulations of a hard rural life, a husband required to legitimize her presence as a cover, and the throes of a war which spills over onto the mountain villagers from both fronts. This slow moving 2:20 hour film pans the gamut of rural life in war torn Czechoslovakia as it looks wistfully at the bucolic beauty and plaintively at the juxtaposed evils of war showing us life, death, love, birth, hardship, evil, and more. An Oscar nominated Czech film with easy subtitles, "Zelary" is sometimes tedious, sometimes riveting, and always full of heart. Should be a pleasant watch for more mature audiences into the foreign film fringe. (B)