2024-07-19 08:12:36
Oldrich Kaiser looks fierce. Whether he transplants, sprinkles or sells his crops, he doesn’t say a single word about it. Not even the fact that some rich man bought the land next to his horticulture will not change the actions of the hero of the film The Gardener’s Year. And he intends to rip off the old man and his wife by any means necessary.
The movie Gardener’s Year is showing in cinemas from this Thursday. | Video: Donart Film
Theater actor Jiří Havelka deviates from the aesthetics of the previous two in his third film, which will be shown in cinemas this Thursday. With his conversational debut Owners from 2019, he made a significant mark as an author determined to revive the comedy genre and speak with his specific lens on the border between reality and the absurd, also about serious matters.
At that time, Havelka brought a diverse group of people to one table and, on the floor plan, a house meeting, or rather endless arguments about the construction of an elevator, for a long time strummed the nerves of the audience and the characters. However much this play on untidy human instruments sometimes squeaked too much with false theatrical notes that didn’t work on the screen, the attempt to combine tragicomedy with farce amid the omnipresent sparking of damaged electricity distribution in the house was definitely one of the bolder attempts here at auteur mainstream comedy.
The second attempt to create a suffocation with a bunch of characters enclosed in a single space did not work out for Havelka. The previous year’s Extraordinary Event was again inspired by reality, once again it wanted to combine an absurd play with a statement about society and today. Unfortunately, the wavering tone, oscillating somewhere between Věra Chytilová’s causticness and Zdenek Troška’s fair-mindedness, weighed heavily on the wrong side.
The new Gardener’s Year has one common denominator with these acts. Again, he tries to turn a real case into an absurd genre game. However, the floor plan has changed.
Instead of a large collective, there is a pair of almost stoic characters, silence prevails instead of endless debates. Havelka cast Oldřich Kaiser and his real partner, the film debuting musician Dáša Vokata, in the lead roles. We follow the silent rituals of a long-standing couple, whether it’s gardening or sitting over a barbecue. In such situations, the film is driven forward by the very charisma of the well-chosen protagonists.
The gardener’s year is based on the performance of Oldřich Kaiser in the title role. | Photo: Donart Film
Havelka again works with repetitiveness, but this time he chose a hero who does not speak the whole time. His “more eloquent” partner barely utters a few sentences. And so Štěpán Kozub has to do his bit in the role of an employee of a private agency, who has been given the task of making the life of a pair of heroes uncomfortable in their long-term residence. Alternatively, Michal Isteník regularly arrives with an offer to sell a house that cannot be refused.
At first, it is a fun clash of profit-seeking individuals with a stubborn solitaire determined to stay in the place at all costs with the ferocity of nature, which he takes care of all his life. But the work gradually loses its momentum. When the director can’t rely on conversational exchanges, it becomes even more apparent that he doesn’t have the kind of sense for the timing of film scenes that abounds in the theater.
Jiří Havelka already helped himself to induce “filminess” in the Owners with, for example, ultra-slow-motion stylized shots, which, however, rather stood out from the whole. Now – as can be deduced from the title – the work is framed by a reading from the prose of the same name by Karel Čapek. The quirky concept seems cute in places when the film sounds slightly archaic sentences like: “Gardens can be established in several ways; the best one is to have a gardener take care of it.”
But Čapka’s subtle irony soon runs out, and as a whole this attempt to give a real case a timeless edge comes off rather awkwardly.
Havelka, however, returns with a better film after a misstep with the name Extraordinary event. It no longer tells about disagreements in the collective, but the clash of the individual with the system.
The Gardener’s Year stands on the performance of Oldřich Kaiser and can be impressive to a certain extent as a tacit, if slightly banal, gesture of defiance.
To some extent, it argues with the common genre narrative. While the comedian often bets on certainty, in the second half the filmmakers make the audience expect things to come, the situation gradually escalates, at times to a dark atmosphere with thriller elements.
Nevertheless, we remain with the typical Czech exaggeration, however it is not only about land, but also life in the end.
However, the gardener’s year will never completely get rid of theatrical habits. It lacks pacing, and that can hardly be excused by concept or intent, by trying not to go overboard. In order to create an absurd or paranoid atmosphere, you need to be precise, especially when the creator wants to sneak almost a hundred years old literary concepts into his film language.
Film
Year of the gardener
Screenplay and direction: Jiří Havelka
Donart Film, in theaters from July 18.