In the last couple of months I have watched,
Kawasaki's rose(kawaskiho ruże) a great production by Jan Hřebejk. The film was like all things Czech, very confusing but also very funny. If you want to learn something about Central Europe and its mentality, I suggest that you view this film. It would be a eye-opener for outsiders. From one direction, it is a romance, or a series of romances. These romances are perverse(not homosexual tho) but they are a canvass for the realisation of justice. It is a confrontation with the Communist past, with the treachery of Communist repression agencies, which spied on their own citizens and destroyed many lives. Somehow it is a little miracle that a film like this came out. In Poland, it would be impossible to make such a film.
I also watched Within the Whirlwind(In Polish, Wicher z Kołymy) about the treachery of the Soviet regime. I thought that it was a Russian film, but it was an American production set in Siberia. It pissed me off that the dialogues were in English. The movie also had a happy ending, too happy. It ended with the heroine smiling, and an adnotation, that after Stalin she was rehabilitated. That was unneeded, that ending hindered free thought, forced the viewers to jettison their own ideas, and accept the forced narrative. Ble, I can only expect what the relativists and average viewer will say, that the Soviets were not all bad, therefore they were all good. I seriously wonder how someone who suffered through Stalinism can smile, such a stupid smile as the heroine at the end. In my family, the only time older people, who remember Stalinism, smile is when they are insulting someone or drunk.
