Just back fro an opening weekend screening of Jánošík, Pravdivá história, the ninth extant film on the subject of the Slovak/Polish gentleman bandit. As an enduring part of the region's folklore, the Jánošík character has undergone a number of shapeshifts to fit the mood of the age.
During the national awakening he was symbol of social justice for the poor; during the Nazi era his name was taken for the resistance movement; during communism he was seen as a soldier for the working class. The subtitle "the truth history" reveals director Agnieszka Holland's desire to have a "historically correct" film, and scriptwriter Eva Borušovi?ová is noted for having done archival research to lend an air of reality to the film. Of course this "authenticity" is its own story.
Two things stand out in the film – the luscious Tatras and the luscious Jánošík. I mean, the trees are great, go to Slovakia and see them for real, zzz. I can't help but compare the film's treatment of Václav Jirá?ek to the way in which the camera longed for Robert Pattinson in Twilight. At the time I would say that I had never seen a mainstream film that so thoughly objectified a male body, and maybe it still stands but Jánošík comes close. The pleasure of looking is not just with the camera, but with Jánošík too, who as the lone wolf becomes a voyeur on the love lives of his highwaymen and who repeatedly breaks mirrors, only to give the last unbroken one to his true love. Perhaps the new Jánošík is today's model man as viewed by three female Central European filmmakers – a just, simple living, noble (beefy) man in the midst of silly fops, crass wealth, and unscrupulous power.The nationhood and social justice take a back seat to the pensive righteousness of Jánošík as an individual.
Oh yes and music – so much of it! There's a kind of drunken revelry to the film that borders on cliche, as in yes, there is a lusty bar wench in braids. The characters sing to pass time, to mourn, and diagetic folk tunes played on replicas of rustic fiddles and horn pipes mark celebrations – it is a veritable folkloric dreamworld. I almost laughed out loud in the nearly empty theater that this would be the closest I came to the subject of traditional ethnomusicology while I was in the field...and it's in a 150 million dollar film being played in an new, posh mall in central Prague. Jonathan Sterne would be so proud, sounds like the Dum of Slovanske!
