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The Karamazovs

The Karamazovs

By Ben Nicholson • February 21st, 2012
Static Mass Rating: 5/5
THE KARAMAZOVS (MOVIE)
Ceská Televize/Eurimages/Polish Film Institute/První Verejnoprávní/Warsaw Pact Film Production

Original release: April 24th 2008 (Czech Republic)
Certificate (UK): 15
Running time: 110 minutes

Country of origin: Czech Republic
Original language: Czech with English subtitles

Director: Petr Zelenka
Writers: Fyodor Dostoevsky (novel), Evald Schorm (play), Petr Zelenka

Cast: Martin Mysicka, Igor Chmela, David Novotný, Roman Luknár

The Karamazovs is a film that I first heard about on a ‘Preview of 2009’ podcast after the presenter had seen it at a film festival in 2008. Over two years later, I happened to notice a one-off showing of the film at my local Picturehouse cinema during their season of Czech films, Made in Prague. Having been curious to see it for so long, I just had to check it out.

Writer-director Petr Zelenka has chosen, in this adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamzov, to do something somewhat different to a straight adaptation.

The film instead centres on a Czech acting troop who travels to Poland to put on a performance of their director’s take on Dostoyevsky’s tale, arriving at their venue to find that it is a fully functioning foundry. The Karamazovs, at the beginning, feels as if it will really be about these actors and their relationships as they attempt to rehearse their play in the factory whilst workers continue about their daily business or stop to idly watch.

The Karamazovs

Once the full rehearsal starts though, it becomes something entirely different as the actors are told of a recent tragedy that has befallen one of the watching workmen and the story of the play and that of their surroundings seem to converge. The Karamazovs is not so much about the nature of God and belief as I’m reliably informed that the novel is very much concerned with, but is much more about the nature of guilt and most prominently about life and art and the relationship between the two.

The story strand that really captivated me was that of the worker whose son had recently been involved in an accident at the foundry and was hospitalised. This story was easily the most moving (especially a scene in the bathroom when he is drinking) as he is completely enraptured by the rehearsal and at times seems almost be a part of the play; it is also through this thread (as well as prominently through the play that is being rehearsed) that guilt is explored. As the idea of patricide through inaction is raised by the performances on show it echoes the lingering suggestion of the worker’s neglect of his son and there is then most certainly a sense of guilt pervading the entire cast at the end of the film.

The ideas of art and reality reflecting one another are highlighted as we see this man and how engrossed he becomes in the play despite his circumstances (also showing the power that art can have, even for the common man) and it is clear to see on multiple occasions how much of an effect he and his story have on the performers. However, this is just one way in which Zelenka looks at the relationship between art and real life.

There is a constant blurring of the line between what is real and what is performance: David’s assertion that the worker with the hospitalised son is in fact a concoction of the director’s mind to encourage their emotion; Igor having a conversation with the man outside the factory and then, without breaking stride starting up a conversation with Radek only to for the audience to realise that they have seamlessly fallen back into character. We are now in the play again; the scene in which Ivan and his dead father speak and there is a weird moment with a cigarette.

The Karamazovs

The film builds to a major crescendo at the trial with the actors falling more into their roles as the film progresses and their outfits slowly going from their own clothes to being in full costume in small increments.

The camera work and staging of the play in this film are absolutely outstanding (and get better as the film goes along as does everything else in my opinion) with scenes taking place in what seem to be completely separate parts of the foundry and some lovely wide shots and camera movements taking in all of the watching workmen in the background. Better than all of this however are the performances; these are uniformly fantastic across the board but for my money the three Karamazov brothers and the workman were the four best – especially as the lines between fantasy and reality became blurred late on and the actors essentially become their characters. There is a great line of Dmitriy’s (played by David) in which he claims to trying in general to be a good person but always ends up doing bad things; and when it comes to the end and events can be assessed, it may be David who needs to shoulder a lot of the guilt.

The opening was a little difficult to engage with before everything got into their stride, and this is perhaps the only way in which the film is not verging on perfection but the strength of the ending means it’s really not very far off. It will not be to everybody’s tastes as it is certainly quite serious and dense but I think those that give it a go will be well rewarded.

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Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson

Ben has had a keen love of moving images since his childhood but after leaving school he fell truly in love with films. His passion manifests itself in his consumption of movies (watching films from all around the globe and from any period of the medium’s history with equal gusto), the enjoyment he derives from reading, talking and writing about cinema and being behind the camera himself having completed his first co-directed short film in mid-2011.

His favourite films include things as diverse as The Third Man, In The Mood For Love, Badlands, 3 Iron, Casablanca, Ran and Grizzly Man to name but a few.

Ben has his own film site, ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, and you can follow him on Twitter @BRNicholson.

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