All My Good Countrymen

Although I was unaware of the name, Vlastimil Brodsky, I recognised the face immediately from his obituary photograph in a newspaper the other day, a face as distinctive and unforgettable as that of Louis Jouvet or Michel Simon. Brodsky brought distinction to a number of fine Czech films particularly in the '60's. but it is his performance of Ocenas, the organist in Vojtech Jasny's "All My Good Countrymen", that I remember most. The obituary prompted me to take another look at this fine cinematic product of the Prague Spring. Unfortunately it followed the fate of two other politically liberating films of the period, "Funeral Ceremony" and "The Ear", by being banned during the years of repression that followed, only to resurface with the collapse of communism. Their rediscovery was one of the most important cinematic events in recent years. The title "All My Good Countrymen" is not without irony as this epic tale of Czech village life from shortly after the end of the second world war concentrates on the activities of a group of friends who are not beyond reproach in siding with a politically corrupt regime for material advancement. Are these the "good countrymen" of the title or does it refer to the rest of the village who scorn these petty authority figure with silent contempt? By portraying the friends sometimes with quirky affection and sometimes as petty bullies, the director displays a certain moral ambiguity that makes one feel that the message behind it all has not quite been fully thought out. Another area of puzzlement is the three strange deaths that punctuate the narrative flow. They have an almost dreamlike quality, but, powerful as they are, their significance is not entirely clear. Where the film wholly succeeds however is in its wonderful evocation of time and place. The passing of seasons, particularly winter landscapes, have a beauty that is quite breathtaking. The symphonic score by Svatopluk Havelka, a rich tapestry of ostinato figures, beautifully compliments these landscape interludes while an unaccompanied trombone solo highlights the three moments of death. But it would be wrong to give the impression that "All My Good Countrymen" is a film where style matters more than substance. The use of a silent village crone, generally seen in closeup at moments of crucial drama, brilliantly sums up the stupidity of so many of the main characters' actions - an inspired use of a type of wordless Greek Chorus. In fact the film is often at its most powerful when it uses silence. Note the wonderfully poignant use of gesture when the honest young farmer takes leave of his family on his arrest. It is at moments such as this that the film achieves greatness.

This may not be a good place to start to enjoy Czech film - there are more accessible New Wave films - but it is a very powerful film which should not be missed by anybody who has more than a passing familiarity with the country and its history. With actors such as Radoslav Brzobohatý, Vladimír Menšík, a young Jíří Kodet, and the ever-popular singer and actor Waldemar Matuška, the film has a first-rate cast. In Jaroslav Kučera, it had a great cinematographer. Jasný was by now an accomplished screenwriter and, the countryside of the Pardubice region was as beautiful a backdrop as the machinations of the early communist period and, in particularly, the collectivisation of agriculture, were a fascinating subject. Still, the excellence of the film was not a given. The structure, given in large part by alternating dramatic changes of the environment as the seasons change and those first years after the communist takeover roll on, is effective and well-paced and permits a continuity of tone and subject with certain more episodic elements. The plot, on the page, might come across as busy, but on the screen, there is plenty of breathing space, and room for exquisite shots of the countryside, of work, even of play. So too does the heroic refusal to compromise of one of the characters, František, which becomes of increasing importance as the film moves into the mid 1950s, do nothing to detract from the well-balanced portrayal of the various characters of the village, described and referred to by their silly nicknames from the opening scenes in the months after the war. The history and fates of these characters are handled deftly, often with a brevity and telling detail of a John Cheever story. Neither is the film as unremittingly brutal as others handling similar material, such as the excellent, and thematically similar Smuteční slavnost of the following year. Like that film, I hope to return to Všichni dobří rodáci many times yet, and am sure it will repay repeated viewing.

The end of the War brings a Communist government; in a small Moravian village, the hard-working, close-knit community of farmers find themselves forced to collectivize... and the singing ends.

It's a diffusely told story, centered around Radoslav Brzobohatý, who fights an increasingly lonely war of his own to remain his own man, and yet part of the community. Can a few aging farmers fight corrupt men backed by an uncaring government?

Well, this seems to have been a last gasp of individualism in a rise sea of oppression. Yes, all the scenes of beauty are group scenes, where the people gather, musical instruments magically appear, and people sing. But the brass band playing the old songs vanishes, and the most beautiful scene, where the neighbors come to help Brzobohatý harvest his wheat, is worthy of Millais.

An excellent film that takes a group of villagers as allegorical characters for Czechoslovakian society. The film follows these people from post-WWII (and pre- communism) to the late 50s, watching as they and their village change. In terms of the unescapable creeping feeling of dread, I was reminded of Ang Lee's _The Ice Storm_. While the film is clumsy at times (some shots or plot shifts might have been done better), the cinematography can be very resourceful. Watch also for the classic symbols of Czech identity: the geese, the white horse (from the legend of Libuse), and the old women (from the Czech novel _Babicka_). These mirror the plot nicely.

This film tells the story of a village in Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1968. Combining satire, farce, drama, poetry, and pure photo-lyricism seamlessly, it shows how politics and daily village life are interwoven in the fates of a broad spectrum of the village's inhabitants. The film's audacity and epic scope remind me of early Orson Welles--don't miss it!