Ztraceni v Mnichove

After his innovative version of The Brothers Karamazov Zelenka something apparently more lighthearted which then looks like wants to be too clever, only in the end to convince you that it is in fact very clever.

The sort of film that, in less intelligent hands, would have been a failure.

Acclaimed Czech director and playwright Petr Zelenka's first film after 7 years of his successful 'The Karmazovs' is based on an important political event of early WW2, one that I, being a non-european, was not really aware of. However, historical accuracy is hardly important for good cinema and Zelenka's film precisely deals with how history comes to be perceived, and how much of that perception is politically inclined.

The film starts off with a simple satirical, somewhat absurd, comedy concerning an old parrot causing a minor scandal between Czech and French diplomatic relations by fanning an old dispute between the two nations -- a plotline witty enough to hold on its own. But this story abruptly ends after a while, and the audience come to know that the film they were watching remain unfinished. A behind-the-scenes documentary on the film begins. Now there, a most wonderful, subtle, profound, yet hilarious events begin to unfold.

Rather than depending on a comically absurd fictional plot to express his ideas on the interrelationship between two nations, Zelenka unravels a fascinating exercise by focusing on the interpersonal relationship within the film crew and the situational drawbacks they encounter during filming. It is wickedly intelligent. It speaks more about nationalism, national pragmatism, nature of international cooperation and contemporary perception of past historical events than the starting plotline could actually cover. This is one of those successful exercises of meta-cinema.