Shadow Country

C’est le meilleur film de Bohdan Sláma, sauf qu’une partie du public ne pourra pas apprécier – ceux qui sont imprégnés d'idéaux naïfs sur les héros tchèques, ceux qui n’aiment pas admettre la trahison, la lâcheté et la collaboration avec tout type de régime et sous n'importe quel dirigeant et ceux pour qui ce film fera sortir des squelettes du placard. Je n'appartiens à aucun des trois groupes et je suis ravi que Bohdan Sláma ait réalisé un tel film. Il ne peut être réduit à une zone géographique spécifique, à une partie d'une région, à un village et à un événement historique. Il doit être considéré dans la perspective de l'ensemble de la République tchèque, ou plutôt de la Tchécoslovaquie, et des nombreux événements historiques du turbulent vingtième siècle. J'apprécie particulièrement la comparaison entre deux blocs temporels qui ont eu des conséquences diamétralement opposées. De mon point de vue, les acteurs Csongor Kassai, Magdaléna Borová, Barbora Poláková et Jiří Černý se sont démarqués et ont fait des prouesses. Ajoutons à cela une excellente photographie et un noir et blanc qui ajoutent à l'ensemble un côté cru et authentique approprié. Je n'ai pas encore vu Le Procès de l'herboriste, mais pour moi, ce film-ci est probablement le film tchèque de l'année 2020. (09/01/2021)

I have quite an issue with this film. It’s not because of the subject matter. I try not to view history as black and white, so I don't think that every German is a Nazi, or that every Czech is a brave resistance hero. The Czechoslovak Revolutionary Guards are on the level of the Dirlewanger Brigade as far as I’m concerned, so the film didn’t cause any damage to my national pride. What bothered me, however, was that there wasn't enough character development, and the plot didn’t sufficiently convey the events. Despite it being over two hours, the running time wasn’t enough. The main message: war is atrocious, and it breeds even more atrocity. I agree, but I’m giving it only three stars. (24/04/2021)

The message that the combination of a grotesque ideology and a "fucked-up time" strips human characters down to the bone in an unmarked grave is bulletproof, but for a more intense touch of authenticity, I needed more than just a flock of geese running across the frame. It aimed to be a bit like Haneke, but the result is a tattered ribbon, which struggles with continuity and character development. Taclík clearly approached his role as a nod to the military roles of Vít Jandák. (10/05/2022)

This is one of the great black-and-white widescreen films about great things that is exactly what it should theoretically be. The question is whether these crystalline obligatory films really need to be made. Nobody will even bother with the fact that the soundtrack features randomly chosen German hits that are completely wrongly chosen because apparently, it was enough for Sláma that the lyrics are in German, and German is the definition of evil. (22/01/2021)

Regardless of how the character portrayal of the Czechs and Germans may bother many people, I liked Shadow Country, mainly thanks to its black and white visuals, the raw (and by Czech standards solid) performances of the actors and the story itself, which in one village during the 1930s to 1950s illustrated the conditions that prevailed at that time. Regardless of whether the plot was more or less true or scripted, there were definitely some scenes that didn't leave me cold, even though it is quite a lightweight concoction in terms of rawness compared to last year's The Painted Bird. It's hard to judge people you don’t know and times you have not experienced, and although Bohdan Sláma's film casts shadows of blame more on the Czech population, on the other hand we can't lump all Germans into one (Nazi) bag. Similarly, it is difficult to judge the pro-German population, did they do it for money, property, status, or just to survive and not get sent to a camp? In this respect, I'm a fairly ahistorical and tolerant viewer, and perhaps that's why I don't feel so irritated by Shadow Country. (12/09/2020)