Found by the One She Seeks

A journey through the literary landscapes of the well-known Czech translator Anna Kareninová. Found By the One She Seeks is a portrait of a woman who relates to the world primarily through words, by means of which she attempts to capture reality, and whose most intense dialogue with others takes place in the pages of books. It is a portrait whose power lies in words as much as in images. In contrast to the protagonist’s intellectual focus, the 16 mm camerawork accents the materiality of things and the physicality of people, i.e. that which cannot be conceptualised, but only experienced through the senses. Despite this intimacy, which is enhanced through the use of excerpts from Kareninová’s audio travel diary, the director allows the enigmatic translator to keep many of her secrets. Or perhaps he conversely creates new secrets by not asking her to go into minute detail about her relationships, habits or way of working. What she cares about, how and for what she lives, remains apparent in the film thanks to the way that it is attuned to her rhythm and diction, and how it is built around the works of Petr Kabeš, to which attention is repeatedly diverted and whose removal logically closes the narrative. This is an extraordinary film, and not only in comparison with all of the conventional documentary portraits of celebrities that try to shoehorn their subjects into preconceived narratives and roles. (26/03/2023)