It rains a lot in Moravia. It is not only a generally shared popular idea that the Moravians themselves often proudly subscribe to, but also the basic definition of the inhabitants of the village of Houňovice, where the new Czech comedy Franto the Alien takes place. Not even a flying saucer landing behind everyone in the night will change things in the movie, which has been showing in theaters since Thursday.
Forty-seven-year-old director and screenwriter Rudolf Havlík changed the genre after countless romantic comedies. He remembered the first movie he saw as a child and asked what would happen if ET alien he landed in Moravia instead of Texas. Havlík answers the question with a picture that actually says that nothing would happen.
Franta is a local punk who, as usual, drinks a little too much at the wedding party. At night, when he gets behind the wheel of a tractor equipped with a Just Married sign and cans tied to the back of a flatbed, he will not drive himself or a similarly dressed colleague further than to a field not far from the celebration. Unfortunately for them, exactly where a flying saucer will land at any moment.
František thus acquires an intergalactic visitor who needs to borrow his body in order to travel back again.
From there, you can ask all kinds of questions. Why does ufoun need a foreign body that he can’t even properly control and doesn’t move around the village in his normal form? They could be mimicry, but this is how the creators save on effects, and everything extraterrestrial is provided by Jakub Prachař in the role of Franta, who from this moment on stumbles around the surroundings as if he had rickets or if he drank beer with some pills. And it makes funny noises.
Although Frant has an impeccable woman waiting at home, who understands his eccentric behavior, because this “model” is not that different from how the overgrown boy behaved normally in an adult body.
Fortunately, Jakub Prachař in the role of Franta has an impeccable wife waiting at home. She is played by Tereza Ramba. | Photo: CinemArt
It is true that at first the purely physical comedy surpasses most of the humor in Havlík’s earlier romantic comedies. A village full of figurines and drunkards is a safer terrain than Prague, in which the author in the 2022 film Prezidentka set a fictional Czech president and a charming, perfect, modest widower who peers into her.
While these attempts to write real characters always turned out tragically and were full of sexist and other stereotypes, Havlík is noticeably better at playing village characters.
Tereza Ramba plays a strong, determined woman who, although she hates Franta, who is supposed to be a drunkard, she actually understands him. In the end, this couple, together with the space fanatic Blažej and the girl who appears in the village to investigate an alien mystery, represents the most romantic thing that has appeared in the director’s work so far.
To make no mistake: we are still moving in a situation where the highlight of the sitcom is Erika Stárková in the role of a policewoman, who gives sharper slaps than Helena Růžičková. And at the top of that verbal explanation like: “There is nothing here, this is Brno.” Alternatively, Franto’s comment when looking at the background of his sweetheart: “That’s a very nice bilobed formation.”
Otherwise, Franta the Extraterrestrial is above all a film that, based on the basic premise of a visit from another planet, is unable to depict anything even remotely similar to the plot.
The movie Franta the Alien is showing in cinemas from Thursday. | Video: CinemArt
The young man Blažej, equipped with binoculars and knowledge of constellations and black holes, wanders around the village, constantly explaining to the mayor or anyone else that aliens are here, but no one cares. Unfortunately, there is not enough information of this kind to help our natives get away from cards and beer. And so the film cycles through episodes that keep working with the nature of the locals.
Leoš Noha plays a non-stop dialed-up landowner. He keeps cursing that something destroyed his roof and that someone is making circles in his field.
Erika Stárková as Marková and Jakub Prachař as Franta. | Photo: Vojtěch Resler
The mayor, played by Vasil Fridrich, is most afraid that an inspection from the European Union will not come, because someone stole the cistern for which they received subsidies and put it in the collection. And so on.
They are jokes about something like the Czech nature, but very lazy. They settle for less. And above all, they stop working when we see and hear their fifteenth variation.
In the film, someone constantly claims that the entire village is full of aliens, but unfortunately, the creators do not manage to create any kind of convincing open-air museum of weirdos. On the contrary, everyone here is quite normal, and nothing interesting arises from allusions to various social and individual ills.
The film is the exact opposite of the classic conventions of the science fiction genre about a clash with an alien civilization. In the plots of these works, it either happens that everyone is very well aware of the presence of Ufouns, because it is a matter of life or the outright destruction of the planet. Alternatively, the heroes try to hide the alien individual from the representatives of the security forces, who are eager to cut him up and dissect him.
Franta the Alien is based on the fact that most of the film, the protagonist tries to convince everyone that he is an alien with his bizarre voice. Blažej, or later other characters, strive for the same. But the answer is always a condescending “tovížejo”, accompanied by an imaginary tap on the forehead.
It’s actually the perfect guide to dealing with the traumatic fact that the planet has been visited by intelligent beings from outer space. Just wave your hand over it and tap your forehead. Why bother with something science fiction.
