by The Great White Gypsy

For the last day of SIFF I spent a beautiful Seattle afternoon inside the Egyptian Theatre to watch Protektor, which was actually the Czech Republic’s 2009 Foreign Language Oscar submission.

For those of you not familiar with history: in 1938, France, England, and Italy decided to allow Nazi Germany to annex the western areas of Czechoslovakia in an attempt to give Hitler the cranky baby a lollipop. The Munich Dictate (or “pact”, as it’s known by everyone who didn’t get fucked over by it) resulted in a gradual but forceful occupation of much of what is now the Czech Republic.

This is the historical backdrop for Protektor, Marek Najbrt’s second feature. Unlike most WWII films, Protektor foregoes the typical holocaust or underground resistance plot in favor of a more tempered drama. Emil Vrbata (Marek Daniel) works for a radio broadcast company. His wife, Hana (the sexy and talented Jana Plodkova) is a renowned actress and singer working on a big feature film. Though she may look Aryan on a black and white screen with her blonde wig, Hana is actually Jewish. Instead of taking the advice of her fleeing costar, she naively remains in the country in the face of a Nazi occupation. Cinema is one of the first things to go, as is her sobriety. As more and more restrictions are placed on Jews, Emil must sequester Hana in the house more and more. He also must become increasngly involved in the radio program, which is now the German mouthpiece for propaganda, in order to keep his wife safe.

This might sound like a potentially taut drama, like Jakob the Liar meets Schindler’s List meets The Diary of Anne Frank, but it’s actually much more artistically driven. This is even evident in the opening credits. The film starts out with a quote from, ironically, Adolf HItler basically saying a “Czech” is a cyclist who hunches over while they peddle. Hence the constant flashes to the same kind of bicycle scene, and multiple cycles being featured in the plot. The music, the fluttering of bicycle spokes, and the main character peddling an old bike in front of a ‘40’s style green screen set a tone of humor and melancholy nostalgia. Production Designer Ondrej Nekvasil (The Illusionist) does a phenomenal job capturing Czechoslovakia circa 1940 and still keeping a modern feel. From the understated costumes to the feel of the cinema, and the throng of Jews being rounded up in the streets, everything in this film, despite the subject matter, is almost overwhelmingly beautiful.

Petr Marek’s simple yet evocative score elaborates on the playfully constructed tension of the film. Sometimes it’s just a few piano notes followed by 45 seconds of silence, sometimes it’s more lighthearted and involved, but it definitely makes the film feel complete in it’s concepts.

Perhaps most interesting to me is the editing. Pavel Hrdlicka handles some difficult elements very well. I think we’re all used to sound bleeds, but Protektor actually features “scene bleeds” (I think I just made that up, but it is now officially a word). It’s exactly what it sounds like. A scene will appear to change (i.e. from a Christmas party to an apartment), but after a brief shot of the next scene, it will go back to the one before. Sometimes it does it once, sometimes multiple times. It takes a bit to appreciate because it is initially confusing, but it’s an innovative technique that was pulled off nicely. There is also a scene where a sound bleed is actually dialog between two characters that is about two minutes ahead of the camera. The conversation begins while one character is looking for another one, and by the time he finds him, we only actually see the tail end of it. Again, takes a little getting used to, but it works.

Now that I mention it, this whole film will take a bit of getting used to. It’s not a bad thing, I just don’t think American audiences are accustomed to lighthearted views of WWII. This is a story about media stars. A famous radio personality and a famous actress. They are not effected by the occupation and persecution we know occurred everywhere in Eastern Europe in the typical way. The Germans know Hana is Jewish, but because Emil is a trusted radio personality they look the other way as much as they can. At one point soldiers even search their apartment after an assassination attempt on a high ranking official. They find Hana, but they also find a magazine with Emil’s face on it, and they just leave. Most of the tension in this film will be whatever you bring into it. Whatever your preconceptions about the time period, that will be your threshold. There are round ups, and you do hear gunshots. There are conspirators, and they are executed. But you rarely see any of this; it is all implied and referenced by the characters.

That is the biggest (personally the only) problem with Protektor. Even though the couple faces conflict, infidelity, moral dilemmas, etc., there is little in the way of real danger. At the risk of sounding culturally ignorant, it seemed like everyone in the film thought the occupation, even Naziism, was a joke, or at the very least an unfortunate yet nonfatal thing that only happened to poor people. And maybe that was the point. Maybe Hana’s “hobby” of having her picture taken next to “No Jews Allowed Here” signs all over the city, and constant sneaking around, were all implying that celebrities who led the high life didn’t really understand what was happening until it was too late. Characters are constantly telling her, “You have a great life, you have nothing to complain about”, and yet she acts like a caged canary instead of a persecuted Jew. The artistic flair, coupled with the mental disconnect from the characters, unfortunately overshadow the events leading up to the end, and the effects aren’t fully realized until it’s too late.

As a film, I can see why Czechoslovakia submitted it for the Oscars. I can also see why it wasn’t nominated. At times boring and a tad culturally esoteric, it’s not going to be everyone’s cup o’ tea. But as a piece of art, it is an amazing achievement that features numerous creative concepts without ever coming across as pretentious or empty flash.

Also, I can’t get Queen’s “Bicycle Race” out of my fucking head.

FINAL GRADE: B

Leave Comment