The Lake

The Lake reminded me a lot of the Danish crime comedy Old Men in New Cars: In China They Eat Dogs. It’s a pity that Martin Finger and Ondřej Sokol are at times more theatrical than authentic. Often, they turn the film into a farce, when it is definitely not supposed to be that. The atmosphere is excellent, the story has a good pace, the city of Šumperk is appropriately gloomy and the dialogues are sometimes truly excellent. Sokol really shines through the movie. However, for his next project I wish he would be more honest as an actor and wasn’t aiming for so much drama, which was often excessive in his character. Way too often I saw his own personality as we know it from Partička and that affected the movie quite significantly. Other than that, the actors like Ondřej Malý, Jaroslav Plesl, Karel Roden or Zuzana Stavná prove that this movie is not that bad and is definitely worth watching. (21/09/2014)

A classic local shapeless mess, which squints at "rougher paragons" (I would call it a Czech attempt to create a black comedy drama like Terribly Happy), but then it dissolves into inconsistent templates. Here we find typical techniques from the bad comedy (Sokol's hero, his self-deprecating and self-pitying humor), certain signs of reflection on family crisis and alienation (Finger's cold declamation), an extravagant thriller (mechanical smearing of various glaring signs on familiar acting faces - gay, undertaker and assassin Roden), a clever effort to create an absurd fateful chaining of events (the dog in the car)... instead of a dense, cynical and exciting spectacle, but The Lake is more reminiscent of ambitiously framed scenes from ribbons, which last an unreasonably long time, are cheesy and without a good point. A typical goulash from the local film station, sparse, full of flavorings and boiled ambitions. In addition, it disguises its dramaturgical helplessness as "genre openness", the impotence of which is best reflected in the indecisive soundtrack by Jan P. Muchow, who languidly irons possible emotional organs into an indifferent badge (the music cannot be described as instructive because it leads nowhere). One then notices a thoughtless series that reveals how persistently the individual situations are mashed together so that the screenwriters can get them to some sort of point. However, it smells of typical post-revolutionary exploitation, which stems from pure clumsiness rather than thoughtfulness / foresight. [40%] (22/01/2014)

It's an attempt at a gritty but comedic crime plot, but it doesn't quite come together. It's quite drawn out, the acting performances aren't anything great, and above all, it's not as funny as one would expect. Some characters are clearly given certain scenes at the expense of the story just to entertain. But I still don't regret contributing to the campaign. No one will notice my name in the credits anyway. (12/02/2015)

What has been coming out of Czech production recently is occasionally a disaster and only rarely is there something worth seeing in theaters. Ondřej Sokol succeeded in that. He managed to lure me in with the trailers, and although I didn't end up attending the cinema projection, I do not regret searching for and watching the film (finally, thanks to seznam.cz for showing something new as well). Beauty is apparently Sokol's dreamy gloomy story that he somehow wanted to bring to life, and for that he has my respect. Despite a limited budget, he managed to cast well-known actors and overall combine everything into a meaningful theme, and in my opinion, he succeeded, except for that overly noir ending. The film definitely won't win any awards anywhere, but at least it proves that in the Czech Republic, something non-stupid like Babovřesky can also be made... 60% (11/09/2014)

I immensely appreciate and respect Ondřej Sokol as a theater director and Martin Finger as a theater and film actor. That's why I pass calmly knowing that Krásno didn't turn out well. I don't feel like delving into it too much, it's just a big minus for me. I understand Finger's personal connection to the subject and if he managed to close a painful chapter in his life, it's good that the film was made and he received an award for it. But I will forget about Krásno after three minutes of writing this comment and I will look forward to Thursday at the Drama Club, where Sokol and Finger will show me their theatrical mastery. (26/01/2015)