And just like in The Three Brothers, for which three mini-operas Zdeněk Svěrák and Jaroslav Uhlíř served as a model, this time he chose three short stories from his father’s work and combined them into a single character in the film. It is the writer Šejnoha who writes short stories, with the characters emerging from them and asking him to write them differently.
–
The desire to change oneself and one’s life leads them to do so. Photographer Matěj (Vojtěch Kotek) longs for the impregnable pharmacy Vendule (Tereza Ramba), Bohumil (Vladimír Javorský) for a miracle, the car mechanic (Ondřej Vetchý) would like to do something different than he does.
–
Although it is not appropriate to reveal a specific plot and especially the end of any of the stories, it is impossible not to mention the central idea of the film. It is that one should not want to rely on miracles or violent transformations of one’s own or other personalities, but to take life with humility as it is. This is a very nice idea, as well as the idea of reviving literary characters, which is not new, but what is so new in art…
–
But while in the Three Brothers the heroes of the individual fairy tales were united not only by the narrator, but above all by their sibling relationship and the joint effort to bring home a woman (and Uhlíř’s and Svěrák’s songs), the heroes of Bethlehem light . And one central idea is few.
–
It’s a shame, because the film remained a bit fragmented because of that. We watch three stories that are more or less interesting, but to a large extent they still spin in one circle and differ from each other so much that it hinders the perception of the film as a whole.
–
In addition, viewers will always look forward to the fourth film line, which passes through the film, even introduces it at the beginning. In it they will find their old acquaintances, very popular characters of the couple, played by Zdeněk Svěrák and Daniela Kolářová, from whose coexistence the humor of Returnable Bottles and now Bethlehem Light resulted.
–
The humor is black as a shoe, especially at the beginning, but it doesn’t matter at all, on the contrary. Šejnoh’s trip to the funeral home, where he lies in the coffin, even though he is not yet “completely dead”, the conversation with the staff (Jan Budař and Miroslav Táborský) and the point of the whole scene are, in a word, great. Many other scenes among them laugh, the dialogues are sparkling and what we experienced with them in Returnable Bottles naturally shifts and develops.
–
Even in directing, this line is told the most in film. It is possible to mention again Šejnoh’s introductory trip by car to the funeral home. In the individual stories, however, the film is surprisingly static, especially with regard to what we are used to with Jan Svěrák.
–
Bethlehem Light is not one of Svěrák’s best films, but thanks to the stellar cast and humor, which is not much, but it will amuse, it will surely find the audience.
–
| Bethlehem light |
| Czechia 2022, 100 min. Directed by: Jan Svěrák, starring: Zdeněk Svěrák, Daniela Kolářová, Vojtěch Kotek, Tereza Ramba and others |
—
