Friday, September 11, 2009

Dark Blue World (2001)


True blue

The past is often a part of eastern European Cinema. Viewers are usually compelled to think about the history of that region; it’s the only way to appreciate films from that part of the world. It’s not the case with Jan Sverak.

Sverak is the latest in the long line of distinguished Czech filmmakers that include two-time Oscar winner Milos Forman. He won an Academy Award (for Best Foreign Language Film) in 1996 for Kolya. His works are about Czech Republic’s troubled past, but with a comic touch. It’s a method he didn’t deviate from after the critical success of his debut film, Elementary School (1991). Dark Blue World (2001), which will be shown during the Cine Europa Film Festival at Shangri-La, is not much different. The approach is simpler though.

The movie begins in post-Second World War Czechoslovakia, where a former pilot named Frantisch Slama is languishing in an unnamed prison. He reminisces his life after Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. During that time, he and a few other Czech pilots join Great Britain’s Royal Air Force after they refuse to submit to their occupiers. Moments with Karel, the youngest and most reckless member of their group, cross his mind often. Their friendship is put to the test when they vie for the affection of a lonely Englishwoman.

Dark Blue World is Sverak’s simplest film to date. Moviegoers don’t need to Google-search on Czech history in able to follow the plot. In fact, the love-triangle subplot resembles Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor. But the movie has an element of fatalism, which is tempered with sentiment. The movie is unabashedly emotional. The bluish color, which frequently appears in the movie, captures Slama’s feelings. Perhaps Sverak followed Krzysztof Kieslowski’s approach in his Colors trilogy, but it was the right thing to do.

Emotion runs high in Dark Blue World, but it doesn’t manipulate the audience. It rather takes them to places we love to go.

(First published in Manila Times on September 10, 2009)