Bathory

I am more (or less) at a bit of a loss with Bathory. On the one hand there is finally a bit of a revival of Czech cinema with at least a slightly better and more monumental movie, however, there are also a bunch of stupid mistakes in Bathory that should never have been there in the first place. This makes Bathory just an average movie. The biggest stumbling block is undoubtedly the screenplay, which at a certain point, jumps and changes its tune from one moment to the next, and the rest of the plot whizzes past you like a high-speed Bullet train. The tension in me rose only momentarily, when Erzsebet stabbed the maid Sara with a pair of scissors just as the courtier were passing by the hall. This was really the only scene that affected me. The actors do make the movie seem less messy (especially Anna Friel, who is really the highlight of the movie), but unfortunately, it is not worth awarding the movie more than three stars. I am awarding it a clean 50%. (23/08/2008)

I feel that the script was written by Pat and Mat, or at least they edited it, because such a choppy, confused narrative is something you don’t see every day. The first half was still narratively decent, but it got worse and worse as it went on. The story failed to draw me in, I didn't live with the main character, I was indifferent to her fate, and by the end I was so numb that even if the inventive Polívka and Mádl had constructed a plasma TV, I wouldn't have been snapped out of my lethargy. What I was most worried about – the production design and the cinematography – were quite acceptable by Central European standards, although it is true that the completely polished and ironed costumes of the villagers and Turks looked more like an advertisement for laundry detergent, and fell more into the realm of Troska's fairy tales. 3* for the visuals, the courage to embark on such a monstrous project and the effort to embrace the legend of Countess Bathory in an original way. (28/07/2008)

Well, it turned out better than Janosik: A True Story, thank goodness for that. But not by much. Unlike the aforementioned bandit, I didn't have as much of a problem following Bathory to the end, because most of the time there was at least something and someone to watch. Primarily Anna Friel and Karel Roden. Thanks to Brabec's cinematography, quite a few scenes looked as if the director had borrowed them from Wild Flowers or, even worse, from Máj, but at least I got the impression that most of them belonged in the film and that they were not just the director's "Oh, look at the beautiful pictures" whim. The biggest minuses are definitely the "funny" characters of the monks, the annoying dreams and hallucinations... And Franco Nero. His fans will forgive him, but he didn't need to be here at all and everything would have been fine. But apparently it was necessary to attract "star" names. Well, whatever. In the end, I come out with three slightly, slightly above average stars. (15/11/2011)

A major misstep and a cynical mockery of all those who believed the advertising campaign about "the most expensive Czech-Slovak film." And to dryly reply that "you definitely can't see where the money went in the film" is not enough for me this time. The "cleansing" of the legend itself is not bad at all, as Anna Friel is excellent and Karel Roden takes over every scene, but... where the plot requires a few more sentences and two more shots to explain "why and how?", Jakubisko prefers to play lyricist in mono-thematic images of "drug highs" and plenty of nudity. Together with a couple of cameramen, he "paints" the surrounding landscape fantastically, and even in the cheap exteriors of the village he doesn't hold his breath. But then there’s the memory of the battle with the Turks and the viewer is back in the land of Central Europe, where we apparently cannot be as worldly as we would like. Sometimes big shoulders, foreign names, and a big wallet are not enough, which is a pity because I was looking forward to this film. (09/10/2008)

Lots of people criticize Jakubisko for choosing his own path and not following in the footsteps of Nižnánský’s novel. But I thank him for that. You see, I am allergic to Jožo’s “Čachtická Paní". Black and white, slap-dash nonsense. On one side terribly mean noblemen who don’t have anything better to do than spend sleepless nights thinking up how best to be mean to regular folks, not forgetting then to share their diabolical plans in a fit of crazy laughter to a poor woman who is of course sensible, moral, always honest and absolutely principled without any blemish on her. All this presented in a style that wouldn’t have gotten an F even in elementary school. Not to speak about the incredible frequency of clichéd sentences like “All around was thick forest and it was so dark that it could be cut with a knife." No, thank you. At least I found Jakubisko’s “realistic" version at least likeable, even though it is still the same legend, just inside out. Here, Elizabeth is portrayed almost like a saint and the only source of evil is Thurzó and his wife. So this has nothing to do with being realistic. Unfortunately Juraj chose to worst possible running time. It’s too short for what he wants to say. And it’s too long for what he should have wanted to say. His approach of including a bit of everything, resulting in nothing in the end just doesn’t work. He should have simply edited out anything that doesn’t directly concern the conflict between Báthory and Thurzó. Leaving everything else for a TV version lasting several hours. Among its strong points, I should certainly highlight the interior camerawork, the music, the costumes and the main cast (primarily Anna Friel and Karel Roden). However, the rest of it isn’t so great. And it’s a shame, because I wouldn’t hesitate to rate the main storyline very highly, while the rest of it (mainly the horrendous post-production dubbing and awful exterior camerawork) deserves barely two stars. And I would give zero stars for the Monks duo, utterly superfluous, combining the Name of the Rose with the ingenuity of the central pair from Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz a Guildenstern Are Dead". So a little higher than mediocre, hiding a diamond-tipped needle that you occasionally glimpse shining in the corner of your eye, but that immediately disappears again into a rotting haystack. (25/07/2008)