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Ana Geislerova & Ondrej Koval
Photo: Martin Spelda

ZELARY
Directed by: Ondrej Trojan.
Produced by: Ondrej Trojan & Helena Uldrichová.
Written by: Petr Jarchovsky, based on the novella Jozova Hanule by Kvita Legátová.
Director of Photography: Asen Sopov.
Edited by: Vladimír Barák.
Music by: Petr Ostrouchov.
Released by: Sony Pictures Classics.
Language: Czech with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Czech Republic/Slovakia/Austria. 150 min. Rated: R.
With: Ana Geislerová & György Cserhalmi.

This handsome-looking film begins with a bang - a tryst between pretty medical student Eliska (Ana Geislerová, a cross between Lee Remick and Kirsten Dunst) and her older surgeon boyfriend. Both are also involved in the resistance in Nazi-occupied Prague. When the Gestapo captures one of their cohorts, Erika flees to the backward mountain village of Zelary under the protection of the towering bumpkin Joza (György Cserhalmi), a patient of her boyfriend's. As part of her new identity, she changes her name to Hana and reluctantly becomes Joza's wife, living in his log cabin without electricity but with a fly-infested outhouse. During their first night together, he sleeps on a bench while she takes the only bed, knife under the pillow.

An intimate drama set against an epic backdrop, Zelary is like last year's Nowhere in Africa, also set during World War II, but without the richness in character or theme of the latter. Here, Hana undergoes a by-the-numbers transformation from urban sophisticate to happy hausfrau in peasant drag. The other characters are as one-dimensional as well. Joza is goodness and patience incarnate. Lurking about the hills are the drunken sexual predator neighbor (boo, hiss) and the town's heavy-drinking and straight-talking wizened old woman. The autumnal cinematography and the mountainous scenery help camouflage a modest story stretched to a self-important two-and-a-half hours. However, the last third of the film gains momentum as the war ends and a new terror begins with the arrival of the Soviet liberators. It is an exciting and wrenching finish to an otherwise ordinary film. Kent Turner
September 16, 2004

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