User reviews

The melodramatic Romanticism of this film adaptation of Karel Hynek Mácha's novel, "Gypsies," is turgid bordering on misogyny, but it does look lovely and is well plotted. The ultimate payoff to an opening sequence that otherwise seemed irrelevant to the proceedings; the reflexivity of multiple characters serving as in-film (or, originally, book) storytellers within this told story; another flashback told via the written word (again, as with a novel) and culminating in the theatrics of the courtroom; the back and forth between characters, locations and time periods; and the use of music and sound, along with beautiful sunset shots--that Romanticism--serving as transitions: it all works surprisingly well and non-linearly for a 1922 Czech silent film. Thus, the title becomes not so much an association with the people known as Gypsies, or Romani, or Travellers, as it's a reflection of the nomadic quality and naturalist themes of this novelistic film. It's rather irrelevant what the story is; the construction of it is so impressive.

So, about that story, or rather the narrative threads of the plot: there's the scorned Gypsy lover working as a Venetian gondolier (and, by the way, I'm relieved the picture doesn't spend much time on a gondola chase here, as that seems rather impossible to make exciting), the woman who scorned him and some wealthy estate owner--an Earl or Duke or something--with which she did so, a son of mysterious origins, the daughter of a Jewish tavern owner, some mad old woman and even some rather irrelevant flashbacks to the Napoleonic Wars. Stick with it, though, and it all comes together in the end, which with a melodramatic plot this tortuous and full of soap-opera style betrayals and death, sexual infidelity and repeated rapacious behavior, is a reward in itself.

Additionally, unlike the prior features presented by the Czech Film Archives in their "A Season of Classic Films" streamed for free, the modern scoring to "Gypsies" is felicitous to the film. Thanks to Trio Neuveritelno, providing the music, for that. This is all the more important because of how many audial cues, including a song, are in the picture, along with its nature-based cinematography espousing Romanticism. It's the sort of thing self-involved mere noise-makers who didn't seem to have even watched their films neglected in the prior presentations.