FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
ZELARY
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
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