I Served the King of England (2006).  Directed by Jiři Menzel.

Choreography

Reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s physical comedy in restaurant settings, protagonist, Jan Dite performs several solo “dances” in the film.  In one of the first scenes in the pub, he adroitly swings a tray of nearly overflowing beer steins above the heads of the customers.  The camera follows Jan as he makes his way between the fully occupied tables.  There is a striking beauty to the way he spins and dances among the pub patrons, depositing the frothing steins at each table and then picking up emptied ones with an almost choreographed grace.  In the midst of his dance, Jan pauses at a table in which two men are engaged in a heated game of chess; within a moment of examining the board, he whispers where a piece should be moved and the game ends in checkmate.  While he serves, the voice of the older Jan can be heard narrating the scene, talking about how Jan came from a small village and now felt like he was in “the big world” serving a “select society.” This scene provides the audience with insight into Jan’s early impressions of the rich and the way that rich men were able to spend their time merrily drinking and gawking at women. The style and elegance with which Jan serves is a direct result of his feeling more dignified simply by being around these men. His performance as a waiter, a server, highlights his balance, posture, and poise and creates the impression that service work can be a kind of performing art.

In addition to solo performances by Jan, director Jiři Menzel orchestrates entire “chorus numbers.”  At the Tichota Hotel, the boss strolls around in an automated wheelchair making sure everything is exactly where it needs to be.  He blows a whistle and fast paced “Tom and Jerry” chase type music ensues. The waiters and the girls all run to their respective places. The girls sit on the couches and chairs with their legs perfectly crossed and fix their hair in the mirrors. The waiters all line up with their bow ties straight and their hands behind their backs. It is chaos followed by excellence, as symbolized by the fast paced music and silence respectively.  Jan’s voiceover tells us that this sequence “was like an orchestration.”   Here Menzel uses the “chorus number” to shine the spotlight once more on service workers. It shows the perfection they must create to be the best and the orders they must follow so they can perform at superlative levels for their customers. At the same time, this “number” portrays the harsh reality of management’s control and labor’s exploitation.  The playful music accompanying the cavorting female prostitutes highlights the irony underlying this performance.  As beautiful as their actions may seem, their service work is no game.

Another “number” illustrates Jan’s story of how he received a medal from the Emperor of Ethiopia while serving at a gala dinner in the Hotel Paris. The magnitude of the event is demonstrated by the phalanx of waiters needed to serve all the guests at the large table. While serving the guests, all the waiters were perfectly syncopated.  All the wine is poured for the guests at the exact same time; we only see the arms of the waiters. This choice of camera placement emphasize choreography and discipline as elements of the wait staff’s art. In fact, the praise of such services is visibly bestowed upon Dite in the form of a medal.  This scene also reveals the buffoonishness of pre­war European capitalists.  Compared to the presumably wealthy Ethiopian entourage, the capitalists seem savage. They fetishize food and opulence and begin dancing uncontrollably while eating food as upbeat music plays in the background. The Ethiopians seem to have more in common with the wait staff, as they are stoic, precise, and watchful. The juxtaposition of the Ethiopians and the Czechs creates a critique of interwar capitalism and criticizes the rich and empowered for their crass self-indulgence. 

II. German Representation Before and During the War

The Nazi Germans were depicted unapologetically in this film as absurd fools. They create a reproduction spa to pass on the genes of their “perfect race”; they derive sexual pleasure from Adolf Hitler’s image; and they are convinced that anyone who is not German is inherently subhuman. They are depicted largely from the outside looking in, and their ludicrous ideas and beliefs are mocked throughout the film with Menzel’s sharp satire and sarcasm. The occupying Germans are represented as zombie-like cult followers, proud of who they are.  This depiction is emphasized through the character of Lisa.  Lisa, Dite’s German romantic interest, is portrayed as a true believer in Nazi propaganda.  Menzel intended to present Lisa’s viewpoint as representative of the general German viewpoint regarding Czechoslovakia.

In one scene, Dite and Lisa are walking on a bridge over a body of water, and Lisa is walking on the higher ledge and continuously looking down at Dite while lecturing him about the importance of pure German blood. She continues to lecture him on how it is not good to mix races because the superior Aryan race would become weaker. Meanwhile, Dite looks uneasy, unable to decide whether to walk behind her on the ledge at equal level or to drop down beside her and look up. He switches between the two positions several times, as Lisa never leaves her higher perch.  Lisa accentuates the Germans’ feeling of superiority by walking on the higher part of the sidewalk.

Lisa’s brainwashing is also clearly on display when she and Jan are having sex after their wedding.  One of the reasons why Menzel was able to make this scene particularly effective is because of the various camera angles used and perspectives shown.  We see both Dite’s perspective (who is thrilled that he is finally making love to someone who loves him and is not a prostitute), and Lisa’s (who is motivated to engage in sex because of Hitler and his Aryan Supremacy Theory).  Lisa is robotic and takes off Dite’s clothes without talking or showing any signs of affection.  She lifts her dress and places Dite in position.  During this scene, Lisa never takes her eyes off of the portrait of Hitler on the wall opposite her.  In fact, Lisa repeatedly pushes Jan’s head to the side in order to stare at the portrait of Hitler on the wall.  Rather than looking into the eyes of her lover as he attempts to impregnate her with a child of “pure blood,” she stares instead into the eyes of the portrait of Chancellor Hitler.  She touches herself as she fantasizes of “bear[ing] the new leader of Europe” to the sounds of Wagner being played on the phonograph.  It is as if Lisa is having sex with Hitler and not Dite.  Her face even morphs into Hitler’s face towards the end of the scene.  The camera work and transformation of Lisa’s face in the scene demonstrate how the Nazi occupation and laws had transformed their love into a service partnership.

The repurposing of Hotel Tichota from a brothel into an Aryan breeding facility mirrors the repurposing of sexuality from playful to mechanically purposeful with the advent of the Reich. Immaculate naked blonde women prance on the lawn, ready to be impregnated by the scientifically “fit” sperm of German soldiers.  Echoing the previous scene of the prostitutes and businessmen slipping blissfully into the hallway doors, the doors now close in eerily sharp and regimented slams, emphasizing the clinical nature of an ironically unscientific, unjust breeding methodology.  These scenes reinforce the film’s ridicule and condemnation of Nazi attempts to purify society with the propagation of an Aryan race.

Towards the end of the war, the Hotel Tichota has been transformed into a rehabilitation center, and the Germans are now represented as weak, injured, and childlike. The pool that was once reserved for naked blonde women at the Nazi reproduction center is now filled with soldier amputees flailing around in the pool like children. They are completely naked and battered – weak and vulnerable men who have suffered mightily during the war. When the camera turns to the band, we see that what used to be a trio of naked women playing instruments is now replaced with three disabled men, one of whom is blind. Such scenes draw a sharp contrast between the aggressive occupiers at the war’s beginning and weak and wounded Germans who foreshadow their defeat.

Blog edited by Cody Leović, Emily Pearlman, and Molly Rosenstein

                                             IDA.  DIR. PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI. 2013

Cinematography:

Paweł Pawlikowski and his cinematographer, Łukasz Żal, shot Ida in black and white, utilizing the boxy dimensions of a 4:3 aspect ratio while often positioning the main characters towards the bottoms and sides of the frame.  By using this frame and typically filming the characters from a single angle with a static camera, the director makes us feel as if the image on the screen could stand alone and be described as a picture might. Pawlikowski allows the viewers to decide for themselves what they think of the characters.  He poses the questions, but does not supply the answers.

Ida is the most silent character in the film, but also the most complex. In her silence, there is implied pensiveness. As Ida is walking away from the convent to go and visit her aunt, she is positioned in the lower right corner of the screen with the convent behind her and the snow falling all around her.  The camera lingers on the unchanging image of the convent, indifferent to Ida’s presence or absence, much less to the magnitude of the journey she is beginning.  Ida looks small compared to the big world she must enter.  She is rarely shown through conventional medium shots or close-ups. Ida is almost always positioned to the side, in the corner of the frame, or just a part of her body is filmed.  Light seems to fixate on Ida.  It strikes her directly and seldom leaves her, as though she possesses luminosity, whereas Wanda is often masked in shadow.  This lighting suggests Ida’s innocence and seeming godliness while simultaneously emphasizing the darkness that consumes Wanda.

The emotionally charged scene in the hospital where Ida and Wanda visit the farmer in search of answers further illustrates the difference between the two protagonists, revealing more of Wanda’s emotions and eliciting more initiative and action from Ida.  Wanda begins to question the farmer, and asks him about her son and whether he was scared when he died, believing that this man had killed her son with an axe.  He does not respond, a silence that Wanda takes as an affirmative, and she looks down.  During this terrible moment the audience can only see the top half of her face and is forced to imagine Wanda’s reaction, as Ida holds her and helps her get up.

The forest scene, in which Ida and Wanda follow the farmer’s son in search of the remains of their perished loved ones, likewise veils or refracts the characters’ emotions.  As they are watching the farmer dig up the bodies, we see Ida and Wanda on the left side of the screen staring stoically. We do not see what they are staring at, but the audience can assume they are watching the man, and they seem rather affectless for two people about to obtain the bones of their loved ones.  As the man continues to dig, Ida on the right side of the screen is only seen with the left half of her face in the shot.  Again, the audience is forced to intuit what these characters are only partially revealing.

By employing a 4:3 ratio and filming largely static shots,  Pawlikowski and Żal make the audience feel as if we are glimpsing the characters through a window or in a photograph.   The beauty of the cinematography is that it breaks away from the conventional mold of the modern action film.  What makes Ida special is that it affords us the freedom to form our own opinions, to ponder both the film’s visual style and its dialogue, and ultimately, to delve into the characters on our own.

The controversy over critics’ charges of Ida’s supposed anti-Catholicism and stereotyping of the Jewish communist:

This film does not present an exposé of the Catholic Church; Ida is certainly not abused by the church in her training to become a nun. The movie is not about who the good guys or the bad guys are. It presents a story about a family seeking the truth about their past. It shows how the journey that Ida and Wanda take together transforms them in different ways. Scenes with look of confusion and worry dominated the film. These emotions resulted from Ida’s lack of true identity and the difficulty she and Wanda face in resolving their issues and coming to terms with their past.

The film’s representation of the Catholic Church evolves as Ida must explore her new identity.  The beginning of the film shows Ida painting a statue of Jesus for the convent, eating dinner with the nuns, and talking to the Mother Superior about contacting her family before she takes her vows. These scenes show the nuns as Ida’s family and the convent as her safe haven. Though the viewer can immediately tell how disempowered Ida is, she seems content with her life, and does not want to leave to find her aunt. Ida’s attachment to the convent lessens over the course of the film, and the young girl who we first see painting the face of Jesus ultimately experiments with worldly pleasures that she once would have condemned as sins.

The scene in which I most noticed a negative portrayal of the Catholic Church is when Ida is  talking to the jazz player. Because of the characters movements and setting, we can sense that they are  beginning to fall for each other and the notion of innocent love is touched upon. There is very obvious chemistry, but Ida must refrain herself from acting upon her impulses because of her position in the  Convent. The jazz player then criticizes the Church, as he likens taking vows to joining the army. The scene in which the farmer’s son sits in the grave in which he buried Ida and Wanda’s family and  confesses that he killed them might be misinterpreted as a form of criticism, as the farmer’s son was  Catholic and not only appropriated property that belonged to a Jewish family during the war, but also committed murder to reach that point. Additionally, his Catholic wife has the audacity to ask Ida for her blessing when Ida and Wanda go searching for their family’s graves, even though the wife is sure to know that her husband had something to do with the family murder. Such an interpretation would fail to take into account, however, that such atrocities were not exclusive to people of any single religion during that time (although admittedly Catholicism was prominent in Poland) – they were human attributes credited to the farmer’s son as a symbol of how people that were not being directly persecuted during the war managed to survive, and the dark times that sometimes led them to perform unspeakable acts out of greed, anger, or fear.

While some critics perceive a defaming stereotype of a Jewish communist in the person of “Bloody” Wanda, Pawlikowski’s presentation of her character is anything but a condemnation. The Wanda first introduced to the audience is more worthy of our denunciation than our sympathy, but the only way to fully understand the complexity of her character is to put yourself in her shoes and imagine the struggles and traumas of her life. Wanda’s negative personality traits result not from a Jewish identity that she had abandoned long before the events of the film, but from her difficult past and the communist identity she vehemently embraced as a shield against guilt and pain.

The film initially characterizes Wanda as a woman who chain smokes, drinks too much, and sleeps around with men.  In contrast to the conservative and careful Ida, Wanda appears to be scandalous and unrestricted. Their first appearances in the film illustrate this difference. In the opening scene of the movie, Ida is painting a statue of Jesus and then carries it with several other novices to its pedestal before the convent. The atmosphere in this scene is peaceful and pristine, the color balance mostly a pure white created by the falling snow.  When Ida first meets Wanda, she walks down a corridor that becomes progressively darker. Ida stands outside the doorway to Wanda’s apartment next to the stairs, and the scene is very dark and primarily black. Wanda is curt in her conversation when she opens her door and seems anything but welcoming.

Yet over the course of Wanda and Ida’s journey, the audience comes to understand that Wanda’s abrasive manner veils pain.  The only way that Wanda can drown out her sorrows and remain in control of the emotions that threaten to ravage her inside is to cut herself off from the past, including her connection to Ida.  She turns to sex, vodka, and cigarettes as welcome distractions and coping mechanisms. The scene that first reveals Wanda’s great pain occurs after they confront the farmer’s father about the death of their family.  When she learns of the death of her son, the audience is given its first glimpse of Wanda with her walls down; she is depicted crying in Ida’s arms on the restroom floor.  While the crying itself is enough to humanize her character, the fact that she seeks the comfort of someone else, the most simple of human reactions, reveals the depth of her sorrow.

Other scenes deepen our understanding of Wanda’s complexity.  When the two women exhume and then rebury their family’s remains,“Bloody” Wanda’s reactions suggest that she herself is a victim of the war, with deep ties buried in its aftermath. As the farmer’s son is digging up the grave, the camera captures a close-up of her mid-section as she cradles the scarf-enveloped skull of her son.  Dispensing with conventional close-up shots of faces in emotionally charged moments, the focus on Wanda’s stomach in this moment of tragedy reveals an under-the-surface investment, a corporal and visceral pain that drives her away from the scene, literally carrying the tragedy that she unearthed. Just as the bones of the dead languish in the earth, so too does a profound and unrelenting grief fester beneath Wanda’s stolid façade.  And when Wanda and Anna sit in a car discussing their family and the graves that they didn’t receive, Pawlikowski utilizes an establishing shot from behind the two characters in the car to show the long road ahead of them; it represents both women’s stunned and traumatized point of view.

The final moments before Wanda commits suicide are critical in creating a total sense of sympathy towards her. The diegetic Mozart symphony accompanies a peaceful suicide that lacks any sense of sentimentality and self-pity. If it was Pawlikowski’s intent to defame Jewish communists, then he would not have created a character with whom we, as the audience, can sympathize.  Wanda dies not in punishment for her actions as a Jewish, communist prosecutor, but in response to the losses she sustained during World War II. Nominally a Jewish communist, Wanda is universalized rather than caricatured,shown to be a resister, a punisher, a mourner, and a victim.

                                                            Edited by Ginny Isava and Nathan Mercado

DIVIDED WE FALL.  Dir. Jan Hrebejk.  2000.

Cinematography:

Divided We Fall, titled We Must Help Each Other in the original Czech, is an award-winning film directed by Jan Hřebejk and starring Boleslav Polívka as the main character. It tells the story of an average Czech couple, Josef Cizek (Polívka) and Maria Cizková (Anna Sisková), who live in a German-occupied Czech town during World War II and must decide on the spot to hide an old Jewish friend and employer, David Wiener (Csongor Kassai), who has escaped from the Terezín concentration camp. In many ways, Hřebejk’s Divided We Fall is decidedly and intentionally different from other World War II films. Rather than emphasizing the stark contrasts of the time, Hřebejk offers us a world in which the complexities of human nature and the paradoxes of our morality are revealed under strenuous and desperate circumstances.

The use of the two shot allows us to observe the development of these complexities and paradoxes and gives us insight into the characters’ personalities. The two shot underscores character connectedness, reinforcing the film title’s message -- the importance of putting aside individual emotions and priorities to come together for others in time of need.  This kind of shot subtly highlights and juxtaposes the main characters’ reactions and personalities -- their peculiar idiosyncrasies, common facial expressions, and most human of reactions.  Indeed, it is this subtlety, manifested in the way Maria frowns, Josef rolls his eyes, and Horst frequently wipes his brow, that truly highlights what stressful times and the fear of the repercussion can do to regular people.

When the two shot is used for Josef and Maria’s conversations, it creates an intimate space between husband and wife. We see early on how Josef’s humorous and almost flippant attitude contrasts with Maria’s more reserved, slight somber personality. In their stairway, before Josef prepares for his trip to the Wiener house, the shot creates a private space between a nervous husband and a worried wife. Josef, normally much taller than Maria, is positioned here eye-level with his wife, and the two appear to be equals.  In another two shot scene, husband and wife are arguing with each across the dinner table, ignoring the presence of a dead pig they have had to remove from David’s hiding place. As their argumentation closes, Josef realizes reluctantly that he must maintain the obligation Maria says he automatically undertook; the overhead shot captures the two reaching over the pig to hold hands, agreeing to be partners in what the Nazis have declared a capital crime.

The relationship between Josef and Horst Prohazka (Jaroslav Dusek), the Volksdeutsch who collaborates with the Nazis, grows more complex over time. They go through a cycle of trust and distrust. For much of the film, their scenes together show Horst in control, but during the final scenes their roles are reversed. In his conversations with Josef, Horst frequently repeats (using different words) the maxim of the film’s title, “ We need to help each other.” Initially, he puts these words into action by giving gifts –food, medicine, or items for the house. Horst’s table conversations with Josef late in the movie, however, indicate that material goods will no longer suffice – the Germans are losing the war and retreating from the advance of the Czech resistance and the Red Army. At his point, Horst’s help becomes action instead of objects: he offers to hide “anything or anyone” in his own home and that of his relatives, implying that he knows Josef and Maria are hiding a fugitive. Ultimately, Horst convinces the Nazis not to search Josef’s house for hidden Jews during a raid. When Josef thanks him, Horst replies,  “Divided we fall.” At this tipping point in the war, Horst stands with Josef and Maria in victory or defeat.

The characters thus rely upon each other for survival and realize how important it is for them to help one another. Joseph and Maria hide David. David impregnates Maria, since Josef is sterile, and thereby saves them all from the Nazis invading their home and his hiding place. Horst protects everyone by swearing their house is clear during the Nazi raid. Josef saves Horst by pretending he is Maria’s doctor. Wartime and occupation force ordinary people into difficult situations and compromises in which they must maintain a strange solidarity.

Perhaps the most ironic two shots in Divided We Fall shows David and Josef’s neighbor Frantisek (Jiři Pecha) forced to sit side by side.  It demonstrates the stark necessity of lying for each other.  Earlier in the film Frantisek had tried to betray David to the Nazis to save his skin, even though he represents a key member of the Czech resistance.  At the end, Frantisek must identify David as a hidden Jew to the resistance and David saves Frantisek by not denouncing him. Frantisek, embarrassed and fearful, tries to hide his identifying armband so as not to aggravate the situation.

Boleslav Polívka incarnating the “little hero”

Balancing its peculiar and often humorous script with the monstrosity of the Nazi occupation, Divided We Fall relies heavily upon the performance of its main character, Josef Cizek.  At the film’s onset, Josef, played majestically by Boleslav Polívka, has lost his youthful energy and decides he can survive the war by passively acquiescing.  He admits that he could “watch [the war] pass by from the window.”  While he feels a deep disdain for the Nazis, Josef’s cynical tendencies and despondent attitude do not obscure his habit of surrendering to inertia.  Polívka does not play Josef as a quiet hero, but quite the opposite.  While his morality and hatred of “those German swine” might call him to act, Josef seems unwilling to do so, and, in the end, it is this reservation which reveals his humanity.  While Josef seems to possess an adult’s moral character, he also displays a child’s anger, fear, and pettiness.  He loafs around his house, often making wild hand gestures, and regularly protests Marie’s distribution of his “possessions” in a manner that seems more likely to come from a petulant child than than a grown man.  Other interactions with Marie, such as when she brings him a goofy leather cap and tries to help him tie his shoelaces prior to his departure to the Weiner estate, demonstrate his childishness.

On the surface, it may seem as though the Holocaust and World War II are not appropriate topics for Polívka’s specific brand of humor in Divided We Fall; the contrast between Polívka’s comedic performance and the gravity of the situations in the film is striking. Josef’s facial expressions, while often funny, are concessions of honesty, and his frequent loss of composure expresses his desperation and fear. After several close calls,  he can be seen grasping his chest with a sigh of relief, or crossing his heart in a hopeful prayer, almost as though he is saying “God help me, this is crazy.”  His attempt to regulate his expression in front of the enemy demonstrates how unnatural the enemy’s expectations are.  When Maria announces her pregnancy in front of Horst and the Nazi commander, Josef’s reaction ranges from surprise to fear to confusion to blankness.  When Josef tries to mimic Horst’s expression of irreproachable loyalty before the Germans, he looks like an idiot with his mouth open and his gaze unfixed.

These varied, often comedic actions and facial expressions play a major role in portraying his evolution from a bored, sardonic, cranky loafer into one who strives, with astonishing resolve, to ensure the survival of his family from the Nazi oppressors. In order to distract Horst from Maria who has hidden David in her bed, a deadly situation, Josef chooses to play a crazy drunkard, singing and dancing freneticallly.  Josef also convey powerful emotions through his body language.  He often touches the person he is talking to in order to persuade or comfort them in a way a parent touches a child when they explain something to them.  When David appears just in time to save Josef from being shot, he at last gives way to his feelings, beginning to weep, but he also clutches David’s head and kisses him repeatedly.

When Josef initially discovers David, however, he automatically decides to act out of friendship and loyalty, and that decision steers him through the rest of the film.  Josef unwittingly becomes a “little hero” who does his best, albeit at times almost unwillingly, to save David, himself, and his wife.  Simple sacrifices, such as working for the Nazis and tarnishing his reputation with neighbors in order to disseminate suspicion about David’s location, are the best he can manage.  Indeed, it could be argued that Josef’s acts to protect those under his roof can and should be seen as acts of heroism, given his constant fear and worry about violent punishment.  His inner conflict and the moral dilemmas that consume him as he contemplates his actions, and his reactions to these, ultimately reflect his bravery.  For example, when chaos breaks out on the streets, and riots, destruction, and death loom all around him, Josef appears extremely worried for another reason: his wife is pregnant and he is only concerned about finding a doctor to deliver her baby.  In these scenes he represents a little hero by braving a war-torn town to ensure the lives of his wife and “their” baby.

Edited by Eshita Singh and Joshua Neal, January 2015

Welcome to our blog on contemporary East European film!

This blog is the collective, collaborative work of Duke University students enrolled in the Spring 2015 course, "Trauma and Nostalgia: 21st-Century East European Film."  We are posting critical analyses of different aspects of seven films made by Bosnian, Czech, Polish, and Romanian directors.  Each post represents student writing edited by a student team.  We invite your response to our work.  Any uncivil or inappropriate comments will be removed..