OVP: Zelary (2003)

Film: Zelary (2003)
Stars: Anna Geislerova, Gyorgy Cserhalmi, Jaroslava Adamova, Iva Bittova
Director: Ondrej Trojan
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Czech Republic)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We are continuing on our look into a week of Best Foreign Language Film nominees with Zelary, a nominee for the Czech Republic in 2003.  Prior to the last decade, when the Oscars seemed to be more willing to leave Europe to get their nominations, there was pretty much always at least one Oscar nominee involving World War II that was cited in a given year, and in 2003 that was Zelary, a film that focused on the Nazi occupation during the war in Czechoslovakia, and how one (fictional) woman named Eliska was able to find love and a sense of self in the darkest chapter of her life.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie entirely takes place during the 1940's, where Eliska (Geislerova) is a nurse working with the anti-Nazi resistance.  When the Nazis discover their network, Eliska is forced to leave, and does so with one of her lover's patients, named Joza (Cserhalmi).  Though resistant at first, she goes with him to his small, rundown country home, in a city with little privacy, but with less intrusion by the Nazis.  Despite her general antipathy toward him (he's unkempt, and lives in a dirty shack), Eliska (now going by Hana), marries him because it's the only way to explain her presence in the village, and slowly she begins to see the villagers as real people, rather than people she's forced to interact with; she also starts to have a romantic involvement with Joza, and the two fall in love.  The film's climax is when the Russians come, initially being greeted as heroes, but then confusing the townspeople (who are fearful of the Nazis) for being fascist sympathizers, and the entire town is put into hiding for the confusion, with multiple people injured & dead (including Joza) before finally the misunderstanding is straightened out.  With her husband now dead, Eliska leaves the village, but visits years later & meets with her friend Lucka (Adamova) on a hilltop, both laughing & sharing an understanding that proves Zelary will always be a part of Eliska.

The movie is based on a series of short stories by Kveta Legatova, and you can see the lines of this being a short story throughout the movie (I have not, for the record, read the short story collection or novel that this movie is based on by Legatova).  The film has Eliska & Jova's story at its center, but strangely they aren't a major part of the movie's actual catharsis or complication.  Jova is presented as a manic pixie dream guy (at least a wartime version of one), and is caring, kind, and attentive to Eliska, and there's little struggle in her falling for him.  In a different movie, we'd expect her to be torn back to Richard & her old life (especially since the ending has her do that), but there's only one scene that really gives us a hint that Jova & Eliska didn't want to be together after the consummation of their relationship, and it's glossed over.

Instead, we get a portrait of the townspeople, which is intriguing in some cases (particularly the strange, almost immortal way that Lucka looks over the entire town & sees everyone for who they really are), but repetitive & occasionally exploitive.  Rape hangs over the film near constantly.  Eliska is the victim of assault by the same man twice (despite the fact that later in the film she's forced to medically care for the guy as if time expects a forgiveness), and two other women are the victims of sexual violence as the movie progresses by the Russian soldiers.  Honestly-the movie is bordering on anti-Russian as it feels like all of the soldiers are portrayed as impetuous, drunken rapists, and while obviously sexual violence was a real thing in wartime Europe (as it is in any era), it feels eyebrow-raising how badly the film portrays the behavior of the Russians.  This is also the only really defining characteristic of a routine film (by Oscar's standards) for the category.