Karamazovi (2008) User Reviews

Great experience of theater, but from a film

[htravis · 9/10 · 2 March 2009]

Is theater entertainment, or do actors in performance live on the sharp edges of blades and ride the needles that cut and sew ideas and social fabrics? Professionally and dispassionately, that is, just like other workers in public service, doing their jobs.

In this movie an intelligent Polish service worker with another career, handyman and building custodian, has the misfortune of preparing a makeshift set in a factory for a production of a "Karamazovs". The production and rehearsal is routine for the actors, but anything but routine for the Pole, for whom is that too-well-lit roadside set of hazard lights and explanations. His perfect storm.

Three times the number of American -based viewers just saw a screening of this as Euoropean IMDb raters, brought with the Director by the Czech Embassy and the Film Curator of the National Gallery of Art.

Be prepared for those serious issues of Fyodor D's: Chance, intent, patrimony and fraternity, predestination, and God. But, you're only watching a rehearsal; and the actors are loose, having done this many times before, so they won't pressure you to TAKE IT ALL SERIOUSLY. You can have a within-you / without-you experience. You're safe, but you've been threatened.

Marvelous complexity?

[plamya-1 · 9/10 · 28 March 2009]

This film requires multiple viewings to untangle the complexities of life imitating art imitating life. So far I've only had one. The suffering of children because of their parents links the major contemporary plot line with the novel. Most of the dialogue is from Dostoevsky, whether or not the actors are on stage. Ivan Karamazov's atheist manifesto of returning the ticket to God's offer of paradise is somehow central. There must be significance in fact that the setting is the factory at Nowa Huta, a factory built at Stalin's behest and the later stage of Walesa's "Solidarnosc." The firs t, as well as last, scene of the play-within-a-play present the courtroom scene -- legal justice in counterpoint to divine justice. The moments of comic relief strike one with a similar inappropriateness as Fyodor Karamazov's buffonade. I almost envy the viewer who is neither aware of contemporary Eastern European history nor well acquainted with the novel, for the film is fascinating on the visual and sound levels as well. A feast for the film buff, if hard on the digestion.

Exceptional. Fascinating

[lubonda · 10/10 · 2 March 2009]

The Karamazovs is a film that has left quite an impression on me, all the more so that I didn't expect it to.

At the beginning, a group of actors leave Prague for Krakow, Poland, where they should take part in an alternative Dostoyevsky festival in a steel mill. They arrive there, and in order to get used to the place they - at one go - rehearse the play they are to perform the following day - The Brothers Karamazov, a theatre adaptation of the novel. In order to be able to follow and enjoy the play, you don't need to be familiar with the novel. The adaptation is well structured and only focused on a few themes, so there's no danger you could get lost in it. Now, I'm sure that most of you, like me, have never seen a better rendering of a play-within-a-movie than this. All the actors are good, all the five male leads are fantastic. Thanks to them and also thanks to the beautiful cinematography and music, I physically realized where the adjective "breathtaking" took its origin from.

Next to the play itself, which occupies some 70% of the film, we watch what happens offstage, both to the actors and, significantly, to one of the onlooking Polish workers, who - in spite of a personal tragedy of his - is unable to take his eyes off the play. The actors' stepping in and out of their roles, it seems to me, adds a lot to the impact of their performance. On a more general level, the occasional breaking of the play's illusion, the being kicked out of the world of Dostoyevsky's heroes to the "real" one, makes you realise the two worlds, the tow realities, mirror each other in many ways; they - as it were - make comments on one another. The nature of these comments does not allow an unambiguous interpretation, and you'll certainly hear something different from what I heard. But that's all right. After all, this film is a work of art.

One of the best Czech movie of the year and Zelenka's best!

[marek-slovak · 10/10 · 26 April 2008]

Karamazovi is newest movie from director Petr Zelenka which is by one group accepted as great screenwriter and really cosmopolitan director and by another group as poseur writing one dimensional characters with unrealistic dialogue and not much good storyteller. Karamazovi, adaptation of Dostojevskij masterpiece, and also adaptation of stage-play written by Czech director Evald Schorm, is his best piece so far.

In Zelenka's movies characters tried to get out from Czech Republic and if foreigns come to us, they're documenting us as some strangers (Japanese in Samotari/Loners). Karamazovi's plot is about concurs for a stage play at alternative festival in Poland and actors plays themselves, one of them trying to get out of Poland because he has got some filming in Czech Republic! Point of view has changed, but great atmosphere (thanks to composer A.P. Kaczmarek and cinematographer) with great actors (especially those who plays in Czech TV shitty-serials).

Zelenka in one interview said that he won't to shot movie like Trier his Dogville/Manderly and that he doesn't like his movies, especially last ones. But Karamazovi is sort of "Five Obstruction" auteur-destruction: Ivan Trojan gives another character DVD Loners (Loners was written by Zelenka and Trojan plays there, he plays even in last Zečlenka's movies Pribehy obycejneho silenstvi and now in Karamazovi) and one of character is epileptic same as Zelenka's wife so it's kind of in-joke.

Main thesis of this movie is that without an audience there is no art. Yeah, Zelenka'not really good storyteller and don't know what to do whit female characters... but Karamazovi is second best Czech movie for long years (after Vnewest movie by director Bohdan Slama Venkovsky ucitel, sadly not at IMDb). If you're thinking that Czech cinematography after 1898 is good, so... You're wrong because by year there's probably 20 or more movies and just three are watchable! And Karamazovi is that sort of movie that isn't good just for Czech audience (yeah, not another tragic comedy by Hrebejk!), but it's great for everybody. Because everyboy's are Karamazovi.

10 out of 10!

[tinuviel_mrv · 10/10 · 18 February 2010]

It is definitely one of the most amazing films I have ever watched! It is intimate, touchy, melancholic, artistic and beautiful at the same time.

The main plot and the subplot fit very well together while we see the play and try to make sense of it through the eyes of the technician.

And the acting! Boy they are amazing! I believe they are all stage actors & actresses which adds to the power of their performance. The actors are all marvelous and their chemistry is wonderful.

I specifically liked the performance of Father Karamazov. I would love to see him on stage, he is so captivating. In fact he reminded me of Haluk Bilginer who is a really amazing actor in Turkey.

I strongly recommend that you see this film with its insights to the post-communist era, great acting and plot, and its fantastic capturing of general human condition.

I have never read the book ....

[cekadah · 10/10 · 9 March 2014]

... but the this movie certainly kept me wrapped up into the story. I realize the book & movie are not the same but the message is.

A traveling actor team produces a complex Dostoevsky story in a factory for the workers to see while working in the factory. Even the concept of this movie is complex. My only problem was the talking and English subtitles were often too fast to fully read. But most was easy to read.

With the actors and the workers being seen working and not working the space between real life and make believe life becomes muddled and maybe, just maybe, there is no space between the two. All is life and to live - all is work.

There is one character that suffers a loss or as the acting troupe suspects is this a setup by the director. We never find out! The end of all is always the same - death - and there is never a ticket to get in or out. And in this traveling theatre group there is no admission ticket either!

Slef-indulgent attempt of the director to produce complex art

[anne_claire · 5/10 · 6 August 2010]

Although I come from East European country and I am also familiar with Russian literature, this movie did not get to me at all. There are some nice visual shots (especially, the ones of the old factory) and the music at moments is really compelling, but otherwise I would say that this movie seemed to be a very egocentric attempt of the director to produce high-end intellectual complexity and call it art. To my mind art never has to be complex, art is about simple things and showing them to the audience in a new light. This movie on the contrary was self-indulgent in its form. I could not grasp the connection between the theater play and the real-life stories and in the end could not tell what it was all about. Sons killing their fathers and fathers killing their sons? Well, to my mind there are better ways of elaborating on this than 1,5 hours long speaking in an unorganized imaginary play.