When he conducts, Bedřich Smetana is in his element. He closes his eyes and lets himself be carried away by the interplay of instruments. Cuts to his joyous dance with his wife Betty reveal that he is feeling supreme happiness. At that moment, there is nothing but music, the pace and expression of which it determines itself. He becomes the master of the situation.
The full-length feature film Smetana, which airs this Sunday evening, begins with an almost ecstatic scene Czech television. It decently reminds him that this year marks 200 years since the birth and 140 years since the death of the famous composer. He is currently at the peak of his creative and physical powers. This will be followed by a descent into chaos and cut off from the outside world due to hearing loss.
Screenwriter Martin Šafránek and director Marek Najbrt focused on the last 15 years or so of the composer’s life, which enabled them to fit Bedřich Smetana into the popular scheme of biographical dramas. They generally portray him as a tragic, misunderstood and suffering genius who, due to big emotions, ideals and ego, has passed the times.
The time frame was provided by the parallel unfolding history of the National Theatre. The plot begins with the laying of the foundation stone in 1868 and ends with the reopening of the building in November 1883, when Smetana’s opera Libuše began operations. However, the creation of this or other works is not in the foreground. The authors of the melodramatic film are mainly interested in relationships.
Smetana is one of the peaks of an atypical relationship triangle. The others are the artist’s second wife Betty and the writer Eliška Krásnohorská. For him, practical Betty played by Sarah Haváčová is above all a muse ensuring home comfort, a solid point in a changing world. But she doesn’t go to his concerts, she doesn’t live by music.
With the more emancipated Krásnohorská, which mainly thanks to the actress Denisa Barešová, does not sound completely flat and naive, Smetana, on the other hand, can also share the intimacy of the work. But that’s not enough for him. He hopes that the literary woman will expand the numerous crowd of his lovers. The author of My Country cannot give up any of the women. Each fulfills different needs. But as a result, it hurts both.
Eliška Krásnohorská does not sound completely flat and naive mainly thanks to the actress Denisa Barešová. | Photo: Marie Baráková
Václav Neužil the younger plays Smetana as a man full of passion, which he cannot tame compared to the orchestra. He repeatedly flies into a rage and behaves rudely towards those closest to him, only to later apologize and reconcile just as fervently. The 45-year-old Czech actor looks too youthful and energetic even with a thick beard. But perhaps it was a way to capture the nature of the musicians.
Smetana’s impulsive actions and impetuous speech have the impetuousness of youth. When she dances in the middle of the hall during the New Year celebrations, there is speed, not elegance. The creators intersperse the most dynamic scenes with shots of a praxinoscope, an optical toy with a series of static images that, when rotated, create the illusion of fluid movement. The principle of the device describes Smetana’s manic energy, his inability to stand still, and later his sudden mood swings.
His hot-bloodedness is one of the reasons why he does not find agreement with František Rieger and the other national revivalists. He doesn’t treat them with the respect they automatically expect. They consider him too extravagant, an erratic figure. At least in this respect, she reminds Zdenka Havlíčková, as Antonie Formanová portrayed her in the recent miniseries Daughter of the Nation. In other ways, however, the creators of the film Smetana approach history more conventionally.
It would offer to stylize the long-haired composer as a rebellious pop star. In 1975, the British filmmaker Ken Russell allowed himself something similar in a film about the pianist Ferenc Liszt, who was Smetana’s role model in both music and fashion. Yours Lisztomanii conceived by the Englishman as a stream of consciousness, a wild collage of images in which a real historical figure merges with myth.
Director Marek Najbrt obviously enjoys breaking national myths and can be very imaginative while doing so, see his original films Masters or Protector. But apparently he had to keep it short when filming the custom Smetana.
The film Smetana is broadcast by ČT1 this Sunday, November 3 evening. | Video: Czech Television
In Najbrt’s filmography, the novelty is closest to the dull series Já, Mattoni from the same historical period. He does not seek revisionism. It tells linearly, not modernistically. And most of the hundred-minute plot is filled with dull dialogues by actors in costumes.
At the same time, Smetana is full of promise that he could be more than another rigid monument to a famous man. The opening pheasant hunting sequence, for example, presents the protagonist as a voracious predator. He later pounces on women with similar greed. However, this “animal” motif is not properly elaborated. The hero’s selfishness and egotism do not lead to punishment or enlightenment. At the end comes the enthusiastic applause of the audience, which dispels all Smetana’s darkness.
Václav Neužil Jr. seems too youthful as Smetana. | Photo: Pavla Černá
In the end, Smetana’s dispute with uptight revivalists or Betty’s extramarital affair with an Austrian army officer fade into the void. The ambitious effort to show the composer in both public and private spheres, while not forgetting the perspective of his wife, lover and rivals, leads to fragmentaryness. The film lacks a unifying storyline and gradation.
At least in individual scenes, however, Najbrt succeeds in evocatively presenting the restlessness of the creative soul and the panic of a person facing his own helplessness. The strong emotions and mental tension that the protagonist experiences while conducting is expressed by the higher cadence of the cuts and the associative band of images, stacked behind each other in the rhythm of the music.
When Smetana stops hearing, the camera sways drunkenly and the screen is flooded with feverish visions underlined by harrowing ambient music.
Imaginative creative outbursts only last a moment, and then there are always several minutes like from a historical soap opera, when Betty is jealous, Bedřich screams and Eliška looks surprised. Although they take place in nicely lit interiors and exteriors, and the actors and actresses do their best to blend in with characters for which they are not very suitable. It would be enough to change the names of the actors and it could be any other Biedermeier drama produced by Czech Television.
When the first film about Bedřich Smetan premiered in 1955, the drama From my life by Václav Krška, contemporary criticism wrote about sentimentality, idealization and a smattering of ideas in which traditionalism meets experimental procedures.
Najbrt and Šafránek more or less avoided idealization and sentimentality, but the third also applies to their film. Perhaps in another 70 years someone will finally find the right key.
