Post 2: Reflecting on Film Spa

Upon watching Miroslav Janek’s Film Spa (2015) and with no knowledge about Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, this quirky and well executed documentary with archival footage has its moments such as the awards and parties. But I wanted to talk about how strategic and political this whole event is.

With the use of archival footage, Janek depicts Karlovy Vary as clean, pleasing, and beautiful place to look at. With carefully displayed shop windows and parties with celebrities’ appearance makes the town appear dreamlike, giving the locals some pride and from an international perspective, prestigious. Like in all festival, it is the location itself that impacts the number of participants such as Cannes or Venice. The film title itself differentiate other European Film Festival as Karlovy Vary is a large Spa town where it can accommodate large number of participants. This clearly was emphasize when Janek includes an archive of celebrities being introduce to its landscape and culture as it is providing some establishing shots of Karlovy Vary. With a quote from Henry Fonda, an actor that was invited to the festival, the one that sticks to my mind was “I didn’t expect when I accepted here, to come to this beautiful situation in the woods” when being asked what do you think of Czechoslovakia. This creates a positive representation of Karlovy Vary as well as highlighting its uniqueness when prior to that quote, he mentions he has been to several festivals.

But to my surprise, when Karlovy Vary International Film Festival must alternate yearly with Moscow International Film Festival because there can only be one A list festival in all Socialist country shows how politics can impact and shape film festival at the time from the 1940s to 90s. When it comes to the selection of the films chosen, under the Communist rule, clearly influence the festival’s decision as the films was based on their ideology and resulted an increase in censorship with films that were deemed as opposing, where these films are either banned or not shown. It was also right winged of them when they give out awards, making their award ceremony biased.

What I found intriguing was the fast-paced cuts between the interviewees when they were speaking so passionately about the fall of the regime and the films that were once banned, are now being shown to the world where many people like Milos Forman wanted to see Czechoslovakia. The film festival in 1990 was the pinnacle point because it truly shows their appreciation to the arts as well as the lovely atmosphere from the audience where one of the interviewee states “it is impossible to repeat”, as that year was one of a kind. To a great ending of this documentary, we are now introduced to many wonderful films that were apart of the Czech New Wave because of the downfall.

Reference:

Film Spa, 2015, Film, Aerofilms, Directed by Miroslav Janek