“I feel captivated by media lies and fear for children. I will not lie to you, and you will be afraid when they stand in the burqa and shout their prayer. I feel cheated when those who lead the country want to discuss with an Arab killer. Xenophobic fear is sounding the alarm, I’ll just say a few sentences, I don’t want a multi-cult world! ”
–
One of them is Jaroslav Vávra, a 55-year-old former miner who is the hero of the new Czech-Slovak film Love Under the Hood, which is currently being screened in the main competition of the Karlovy Vary festival.
–
Jaroslav Vávra living on the Moravian-Slovak border loves autocross racing. But he doesn’t race himself, he has high pressure and he can’t hear well, so he sends his partner Jitka on the track, who is the oldest autocross driver in the Czech Republic. Jaroslav serves her as a personal mechanic and coach, and she serves as a willow tree for his longing for a messy life in which everything and everyone conspired against him. Jaroslav is in litigation with his own daughter, is at war with a similarly grumbling mother living in the same household, and is slandering Jitka for autocross offenses.
–
Director Miro Remo filmed with the heroes for three years, and such a long collaboration is well known. The heroes act as authentic and immediate in front of the camera. Although Love Under the Hood is a documentary, the heroes act as dramatic characters, more dramatic than in any feature film. All three central characters – Jaroslav, Jitka and Jaroslav’s mother Jiřina – are completely immediate in front of the camera, often as if they did not even notice her. Thanks to this, the observationally shot film often gives the impression of a feature film, to which the excellent editing of Šimon Hájek also contributes.
–
Thanks to the inflated musical component, part of the film resembles a clip, in addition to the aforementioned Ortel, there are also several songs by Hložek and Kotvald and one by Michal David. Even these perfectly illustrate the thought horizon of the characters. “In a moment, make camps and they will lock us up for the music,” says Jaroslav.
–
Artfully, the film also consists of reality from family archives depicting Jaroslav’s life with his previous family, with which he is now in the. The film also includes action moments from autocross races, when Jitka often loses control of the car right in front of our eyes. The result is an energetic, entertaining and emotionally impressive film that has a number of very humorous moments.
–
In it, however, the viewer goes through emotional changes with the heroes, from laughter to almost crying, from compassion to disgust, but he cannot leave the hero on the screen for a moment. The director approaches them with understanding and compassion, does not make fun of them and does not judge or moralize them. We often and surprisingly understand how they got into their misery and why they can’t find a way out of it.
–
“It’s an intimate story about a man who, with his story, represents many others who have lost their illusions,” says director Miro Remo about the film. “These people, often without their own intervention, were eventually betrayed by the system they believed in, and so today they are bitterly watching contemporary political theater.”
–
The frustration of a messy life bubbles in Jaroslav behind the wheel and in the garage above the wrecks of the cars from which he composes his racing models. In the kitchen, meanwhile, his mother comments on everything with similar disillusionment, between the angry killing of constantly buzzing flies and the sanding of a canary. “I saved myself for the communists, but he taught what the ragged democracy is, so I won’t save a dime,” he laments over the tabloid press, commenting on a black chronicle about a man who stabbed his mother, “It wasn’t under the communists.”
–
The film often flashes the disillusionment of the heroes even over the country’s post-November political development. Eternal disillusionment with which the hero wakes up in the morning and goes to bed in the evening, disillusionment with life, politics and ungrateful adult children, disillusionment with a long-term marriage that ended in divorce. “It has been better, it will never be better,” Jaroslav shouts at his loved ones and his mother admits that it is not possible in this country. The end of the film will bring Jaroslav at least one joy of life, followed by participation in a concert by Ortel’s group, where he enthusiastically accentuates the lyrics from the beginning of this article.
–
The result is a kind of disillusionment for the viewer, who is sincerely having fun throughout the film. Over how easy it is for extremist parties to catch these people and how difficult it is for them to find a way out of the bitterness of life.
–
The director of the film is Miro Remo, known, among other things, for his documentary portrait of Richard Müller Unknown. Remo accompanied the film to the Karlovy Vary premiere, as did its heroes – Jaroslav and his partner Jitka on the red carpet in front of the Thermal Hotel arrived in their autocross cart. Three more screenings await the film festival after Tuesday evening’s premiere. Love Under the Hood then enters Czech cinemas on September 16, a week earlier it will perform in Slovak ones.
—