Screenwriters Hana Wlodarczyková and Martina Komárková and director Lenka Wimmerová presented Božena Němcová in a slightly different way than what has been presented so far. Unfortunately, “otherwise” does not mean that their view of the icon of Czech literature is beneficial.
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The series follows the life of Barbora Panklová from 1837, when she was married “as a parent” to Josef Němec as a seventeen-year-old parent. A retired fifteen-year-old clerk and patriot disobeyed his friend’s warning, and married a wayward girl who “prefers to read rather than bake,” hoping to raise her. But hope proved vain.
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Throughout her life, Barbora remained a free-spirited woman who, however, in the conventions of the time, purely patriarchal, did not have a chance to assert her desires and opinions. After all, no matter how much they admired and loved her in the patriotic literary circles of Prague at the time, her views on the position of women in society surprised her there as well.
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Not to mention her private-mindedness, which brought her to many dormitories and, conversely, permanently distracted her from the slightest work in the household, which was considered the most basic female duty alongside the birth of children (the only one she received four times).
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However, everything that the series said about Božena Němcová is only an illustration of the well-known sin. The “other presentation” consists mainly of sexual scenes, which the director does not spare. It is well known that Němcová had a love affair with the revival poet Václav Bolemír Nebeský and other men. Only so far has never been so much space devoted to their love in the painting. However, this can hardly be described as a benefit, just like the nipples of the current speech into the then, for example, the cry “you get into everyone’s p” le “.
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The motivation of her inclination towards patriotism, that is, of what made her a national writer, is unflatteringly expressed. After all, the Czech patriotic society, of which Němcová became a part, is generally given such a minimum from the large space of four parts that (for example, in the writer’s repeated meeting with Karel Havlíček Borovský, when he only admires Havlíčka!, Hugs and nothing) reminds him personalities in the film Jára Cimrman lying, sleeping. Here, however, without humor.
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The need for Germans to write is also expressed in a dwarfed way. A long shot of how he describes Grandma is certainly not a deeper expression of this desire. And words like “I don’t want to give birth, I want to go to the ball” don’t either. Only at the end, when the patient writes with pain, does one realize what it meant to her.
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The family of Božena and Josef Němcov.
Photo: Czech Television
The scenes in which Josef accuses her of not being willing to contribute any work, including writing, to the family budget are, in the end, stronger than those that express her soul. As everything is presented, one would paradoxically agree with him almost right.
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The character of Josef Němec, who is only said to have been a tyrant and a rapist and Němcová was unhappy with him, is, after all, the only benefit of the whole series. He emphasizes that it was he who taught his wife to read Czech, he introduced her to the Prague art society and never compromised her patriotic attitudes.
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He was no happier than she was. On the contrary, thanks to the excellent performance of its representative Jan Hájek, it is obvious that he tried very hard to balance the marriage. He loved and hated her, but to support her in her desires instead of caring for children and the household (even in times of emergency Němcová had a maid) to read, play the piano, go to society, throw money and write, the average, honest, but conventionally limited the man just couldn’t.
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The fact that he was able to abuse her physically and mentally is fully reprehensible from today’s point of view, but it fits into the life of that time, and especially from the fourth part it is clear that Josef did so out of sheer despair.
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Both actresses coped very well with the character of Božena Němcová. Anna Kameníková, who won the hearts of many viewers, showed her as a young woman, although very intelligent and talented, but also romantically naive after four children.
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Anna Geisler, on the other hand, expressed a convincingly prematurely aging, tumultuous, yet dissatisfied life-dragged sick lady. But more than about her, the whole series is about her husband after all. This would not matter at all, only the work should not be called Božena and the main attention of the creators would have to be focused differently and elsewhere.
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| Bozena |
| Czechia 2021, 5:51 am Director: Lenka Wimmerová, starring: Anna Kameníková, Anna Geislerová, Jan Hájek and others |
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