Czech Republic
4.5*
Director:
David Ondříček
Screenwriter:
Marek Epstein
Director of Photography:
Adam Sikora
Running time: 101 minutes
Original title: Ve stínu
Alternate English title: In the Shadow
Ve stínu (In the Shadow of the Horse) is a perfectly controlled work of historical significance that is coherent and approachable even for those who know very little about the history of the present-day Czech Republic.
With the tragedy of history in the background, the film is more interested in the human dimension and takes as its centrepiece an honest policeman and his family who are all struggling under the burden of living in a society that is gradually becoming more oppressive and where the walls will soon have ears.
The policeman’s name is Captain Hakl, and, as played by Ivan Trojan, he is compassionate, especially in the moments when he lets his guard down around his wife and young son — and sensitive to the dangers they might face as a result of the government’s desire to hold on to power, even if it means stealing their own people’s money to do that.
The year is 1953, and rumours are rife the government is planning a monetary reform, which would mean that the currency loses its value overnight and the country’s citizens are left with a fraction of their former wealth.
But high-level government officials, including newly chosen President Antonín Zápotocký, deny they are considering a reform of the Czechoslovak crown, and even Captain Hakl believes he would know if such a big project were really underway. But his wife doesn’t have the same faith in the authorities as her husband and tells him they should draw all their money and invest it in art for the sake of their son.
The horse in the English title seems to be connected to a radio broadcast early in the film, in which the country’s finance minister, Jaroslav Kabeš, laughs off the implication that his office is making places to reform the currency, and states that this idea is a dead horse gossipmongers should bury instead of continuing to beat.
With whispers about monetary reform in the background, on the radio, from the newspaper vendor at the famous former tram stop on Prague’s Wenceslas Square, and most importantly, coming from Hakl’s own wife, Jitka, there is a palpable sense that the characters all know where things are headed but consider themselves unable to ask tough questions for fear of discovering they might be right.
There are many parts to this film, though it all appears to be deceptively simple. When a jewellery store is burgled in the middle of the night and a safe robbed of its contents, the police detectives track down the most likely suspect, a Jewish man called Kirsch, who Hakl soon realizes is innocent.
But innocence has no place in the machinations of the Communist Party’s police investigations and, soon enough, State Security, supported by an East German detective named Zenke (Sebastian Koch), makes it clear Kirsch is the man, even linking him with a bloody shoot-out at the post office, though here, too, Hakl has uncovered evidence that contradicts the official position.
The film is drenched from beginning to end, as director David Ondříček (perhaps best-known for his film Loners, or Samotáři, in 2000) makes it clear that in this world of gloom good men often cannot save themselves through their struggles. But, despite Ondříček’s sombre-toned images and the almost constant rainfall, the film never makes style a priority to the detriment of its story. The focus on character rather than form means this is a much more intimate take on the events surrounding the monetary reform, rather than merely a historical document.
Slowly, the real substance of the film comes into view, and what we get is a view of an honest man, a wife who feels loved but somewhat neglected and fearful, and a boy who will be his father’s age when the revolution eventually rolls around in 1989. The scenes between Hakl and his wife and son are devoid of sentiment yet deeply touching, thanks in large part to Trojan’s very measured performance as a man who knows it’s not easy to do the right thing but wants to be the father his son can be proud of, yet has to be mindful of the safety of everyone close to him. Trojan’s powerful depiction of a policeman in 1969 Czechoslovakia in the breathtaking HBO miniseries Burning Bush (Hořící keř) is very similar to his role here.
In the end, the scenes most often associated with this terrible era in Czechoslovak history — the show trials and the uprising in Plzeň — are either missing or downplayed. But instead of highlighting misery, Ondříček’s film has tender scenes with complex characters that reveal great humanity in the midst of such a thoughtful, poetic treatment of past injustices.
This is a slightly modified version of the writer’s review that first appeared in The Prague Post.