Zelary

For those who are fans of foreign films, this is a must. The scenery alone is enough reason to watch this movie. This was cast very well. The two main characters were outstanding as well as the children actors. The little girl reminds me of Natalie Wood when she was in Miracle on 34th street. The journey of the film takes one through every emotion in the book. Though it is slower paced, it allows one to reflect and bond with the characters. It's not a relaxing film as there is this underlying tension caused by the uncertainty of a country torn by war. Overall, an excellent film. Bravo to the director and all the crew! Outstanding job. I look forward to many more great films out of Czechoslovakia.

Kerry Johnson

Zelary is yet,another good find at the library for me. I hadn't heard of this film and I was sort of taken in by the unusual title. I watched it over 2 nights because I started the first 1/2 of the film kind of late. Otheriwse,I'd have sat straight through it.

While it's true that there are elements in the film that have been used in other World War 2 dramas,that's a very small thing compared to the grandeur of the movie.

It's (as mentioned in the DVD extra's) a love story. Two people get married to protect her from the Nazi's,who would have her executed for working against them. Sort of a marriage of convenience. What starts as something she's not looking forward too,blossoms into love between the two. Despite him being almost 30 years older.

We see little of the German threat here but we know it exists,along with the threat of a young man wanting his way with her or he'll turn her in.

The movie is more about how she truly becomes as one of the of the small village. The villagers are not 2 dimensional as someone mentioned,they are exactly as people were back then in the 1940s and farther back as well. The scenery is breathtaking and real which helps make it look as it did in that era as well.

I feel all the actors did a fine job for a film that took 1 year and 2 months to complete. That long because they wanted authentic time and aging to happen,for a better sense of realism.

It's nothing ground breaking but it was a very fine film to watch and become fully engrossed in.

9 stars,purely for being a good movie,with good drama and heart,as well as entertainment value. (END}

Following similar themes as "Cold Mountain" this official Oscar submission from the Czech Republic is a masterful war time drama with a great heart. Heart-breaking and warm, it carries those themes to a much richer conclusion than "Cold Mountain" was able to. if this film is not one of the Foreign Language film nominees then something is clearly amiss. See it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I thought it was not only well-written but quite visually interesting. I found the character of Hana particularly endearing. In fact, I wrote about her in an essay I'm doing on the idea of 'home' in literature and some film: Zelary was mentioned before as having thematic elements involving a physical home. However, this film takes a slightly different approach to the aspects of home. Whereas one normally would define home for his or herself, then make some sort of journey to find it; Hana is forced to do things oppositely in Zelary. Because turmoil physically forces her out of the place she had come to call home, she must redefine home for herself in order to make her current setting her new home. She succeeds in this through accepting the rural lifestyle and falling in love with her new husband, and she even manages to go back to her old home once again. This reversal of the task of defining home is what creates the central conflict in the film, and Hana's flexibility in making home a solid place is what makes her a strong protagonist.

Zelary (2003), directed by Ondrej Trojan, is an variation on the theme of a person thrown into an environment for which he or she is not prepared. In this case, the protagonist Eliska (Anna Geislerová) is a beautiful, sophisticated nurse in Prague during the German occupation. Forced to escape from Prague, Eliska finds herself in a remote Czech farming village.

In this setting, her urban knowledge and social skills are inadequate for survival. Predictably, her basic intelligence and her nursing experience do, indeed prove useful. However, without help from the people in the community, she can't possibly survive. Whether her abilities--and the assistance of the villagers--will prove adequate to ensure survival is the question around which the plot revolves.

The weakness of the film is that Eliska's transition into her role as the wife of a farmer is far from adequate. Anna Geislerová is so refined and elegant that it would have taken more than two long braids to fool the Germans (or anyone else).

Still, the concept is interesting, and the film does well in conveying the complexities and difficulties that confront a stranger in an apparently tranquil rural community.