email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

BERLINALE 2010 Panorama

The past comes knocking in Kawasaki’s Rose

by 

The challenge faced by Petr Jarchovsky and Jan Hrebejk, respectively the screenwriter and director of Czech film Kawasaki’s Rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, presented in the Panorama section of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, was a big one: to portray communist Czechoslovakia in the footsteps of the hit The Lives of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Florian Henckel von Donners…
interview: Ulrich Muehe
film profile
]
.

The story, set in the modern, well-off Czech Republic, centres on a renowned psychiatrist on whom a television documentary is being made, in particular on his experiences as a former dissident against the regime in the 1970s.
. The man, now elderly, also has numerous personal. His daughter, cured after years of undergoing cancer treatment, discovers that her husband, who works for the TV channel behind the documentary, is cheating on her with a co-worker. His granddaughter shoplifts from supermarkets. And when a hidden secret emerges from his old secret service dossier, his world becomes to topple.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

“The film is partially based on the case of informant Joska Skalnik, which emerged recently in the media, as well as for personal reasons”, said Jarchovski and Hrebejk, who previously made Divided We Fall, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2000.
Kawasaki Rose is also based on a 1989 study of communism by historian Jiri Suk, who claims that the memories of the protagonists of those events are unreliable, and often even different with respect to the actual events, due to emotions and the mystification of memory. “We have assembled the story around the memories of the protagonists, without flashbacks, to analyse the suffering generated in ordinary people accused of being informants,” added Hrebejk.

The film was shot over five weeks in 2009, on location in Göteborg, Sweden, and in various Czech locations with digital effects and two cameras. The highly production value in terms of the film’s look, which steers towards elegant cold tones, is not enough, however, to give consistency to a plot that is not very emotionally involving and pays too much attention to conducting, in parallel, public and private motivations, psychology and sociology, comedy and drama, to the detriment of the narrative rhythm of Kawasaki Rose .

Produced by In Film Praha and Infinity in co-production with broadcaster TV Nova and with financial support from the Czech State Fund, the film was distributed domestically by Bonton in December. International sales are handled by Menemsha Films.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from Italian)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy