Review: Eben’s inappropriate jokes and an overly aware movie. The boils started with a splash

When the last snowflakes fell and the figure skaters disappeared from the stage, Marek Eben welcomed the audience as usual. Right at the beginning, he spoke mainly to the foreign guests. And that was already a little less impressive. The moderator told them where they were in a light tone and joked about how the Czech Republic is a nice country where there is no war and where you can drink on the street, while elsewhere the alcoholic drink has to be hypocritically hidden in a bag.

Later, ironically – albeit in a would-be kind spirit – he asked the ladies that when queues are forming at the toilets, they can boldly go to the men’s toilets, because today everyone has the right to feel like a man and no one can object to that.

The only, all the more sad irony, is that he spoke to, among others, the Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, who was awarded by the president of the festival, the protagonist of the historical drama The Queen’s Gambit, which was screened that evening, and whose theme is history dominated by men. And whose director offers an alternative reading of history in which women also have a say.

Perhaps it was an unintended dig at the uneven quality of the film from Tudor England, in which Jude Law plays the repulsive tyrant Henry VIII. But rather not, because why would the festival drop its own opening film.

It’s a shame. When, after earlier criticism of the selection of some foreign guests, the organizers really bring great actors and actresses, the official places make jokes that seem to indicate to them: don’t come here again, they will tell you under the cloak of gentle humor that you have arrived in places where people feel they are the navel of the world and can only laugh at everything that crosses their horizons.

Otherwise, after the skating choreography on the ice, Friday evening was mostly marked by rain. He first sprinkled the audience waiting in front of the red carpet in the afternoon and sounded again for the seventh time in the evening during the concert of the British band Morcheeba outside the Hotel Thermal.

Charismatic singer Skye Edwards’s call to sing along was at first reluctant for the squeamish audience. But when the famous song was played at the end of the energetic performance Rome Wasn’t Built in a Daythe choir “Walking free / in harmony” was already being carried through the space.

This was followed by a screening of the opening film The Queen’s Gambit, which, after its May premiere in Cannes, France, was seen by Karlovy Vary audiences like no other in the world. The historical drama is the first film made in English by Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz. The adaptation of the prose of the same name, also published in Czech, by contemporary British writer Elizabeth Fremantle revolves around the role of Kateřina Parrová at the English court.

This last, sixth wife of King Henry VIII. she was an educated woman who wrote books. So far, a suitable historical foreshadowing for a film that took as its motto the fact that history is mostly devoted to men and wars. And that this should be a somewhat different view.

Alicia Vikander plays a self-aware noblewoman embroiled in intrigue. She knows that, like the previous, unnatural death of the late king’s wife, she too is part of a political marriage. Both the court and the church prosecute all suspects and fear the instability and chaos that Protestant “heretics” could cause.

Jude Law as Henry VIII. and Alicia Vikander as Katerina Parr. | Photo: Larry Horricks

Jude Law as King Henry VIII. he has several reasons to worry. The first – and quite intense – are his festering legs afflicted with a difficult-to-treat infection. He also feels constant paranoia that someone is out to harm him and wonders if his wife is faithful to him, if she will be the mother of the heir to the throne and the right queen to keep the land in balance.

For just a few moments, the film goes outside the cramped interiors of the castle chambers, where constant tension is rampant. Outside, the creators use soft natural light. In slightly hazy, even mysterious contours, they show a world that is awaiting big changes. But in exteriors, the effort not to use artificial lighting leads to an unattractive visual.

It is probably supposed to be a concept that will enhance the psychological and physical difficulties that the heroes go through and show the audience the ugly face of history. But the authors do not explain the background of the events too much, they do not sufficiently reveal to viewers who do not know the details what is behind some of the friction or mistrust between the protagonists. And with similar subtlety, they modify historical facts in favor of an emancipated agenda. It may be a legitimate game, but this time it leads to a rather simple fulfillment of a contemporary perspective that wants to highlight the role of women in a male-dominated history.

The film is not afraid of manifestations of carnality, whether it is the regent having sex with the queen, when the monarch’s monstrous ass dominates the shot, or problems with a festering leg. And the film contains enchanting moments, especially when Jude Law is on the scene as a monstrous embodiment of royal power.

But his presence paradoxically diminishes the performance of Alicia Vikander, who sometimes has scathingly precise answers to Henry’s reign. The director, shooting for the first time in the English language, does not seem to know how to lead a foreigner as convincingly as when he lets Law unleash his rampage.

Alicia Vikander and Jude Law in a scene from the movie The Queen’s Gambit. | Video: Magnolia Mae Films

But above all, the Queen’s Gambit deals with a single topic for two whole hours and does not convey to the audience the feeling that it is an equal part of some powerful chess game or history.

At the same time, cinematography has recently taken a liking to inventive views not only of the British aristocracy. For all the films, let’s name the film Favoritka, in which another foreign director, Yorgos Lanthimos from Greece, with insight and visual bravura, remarkably touched on political wrongs and the role of women in the English court.

Alicia Vikander as Katerina Parr. | Photo: Larry Horricks

Karim Aïnouz shoots very close-up, the camera wanders around the figures, who sometimes turn into dark silhouettes when the backlight from the large windows enters the room.

It’s on purpose, the director doesn’t want to create a fancy costume drama full of period properties. But in the end, it shows the contradiction between monstrous men and conscious women all too blatantly – and paradoxically, some of the characters are left with their costumes and beards rather than revealing their roles in the contemporary political party.

Perhaps it is a topic that, after centuries of injustice, requires emphasis and a shift in perspective. However, even with all the factual shifts that give Kateřina Parrová a more active role in the course of history, the creators are not consistent. Because King Henry in all his despotic animality sticks in the audience’s mind rather than Catherine.

The opening of the Karlovy Vary festival went down well. The answer to the inappropriate jokes came in the form of a film that allowed itself to be a little too absorbed by the conscious ambitions that Marek Eben laughed at with such gusto. Missteps are clearly happening on both sides of the “barricade”. Also, there was the captivating dancing and singing.

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