Concert at the End of Summer

"A variation on the Dvorak theme," proclaims the title at the beginning of the film. What does that mean? Not Dvořák's biography, of course. František Vláčil, based on a script by Zdeněk Mahler, made a strangely atmospheric film that tells a story based on real episodes from the life of our best composer. About love, about the struggle of a gifted man with his own doubts and the doubts of others, about good and evil, about God and the devil... Josef Vinklář is excellent in the lead role, and the film is generally full of great actors who, with few exceptions, don't get much screen time. The script could have avoided a few unnecessarily slow parts and the characters played by František Němec and Jiří Bartoška did not have to be made into such hellish caricatures (although this was obviously the intention). This way, one almost waits for them to stop hiding their horns and disappear with Dvořák in a cloud of smoke and brimstone. (02/03/2013)