John Lennon in Prague (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
The New York Film Festival will be showing the following Czech film at the Walter Reade Theater on October 13th–if you’re in the city, czech it out…
Burning Bush
Hořicí keř | Agnieszka Holland 2013
Czech Republic | Czech with English subtitles | 234 minutes
In January 1969, Czech student Jan Palach set himself on fire to protest the Soviet clampdown that followed Prague Spring. The terrible historical moment that formed the backdrop of Palach’s heroic action is recalled to vivid life in this passionately brilliant mini-series. Agnieszka Holland and writer Stepan Hulik trace the ripples of Palach’s defiant gesture throughout Czech society and the moves and counter-moves it set in motion by coercive and the coerced, the terrified many and the courageous few: the young Dagmar Buresova (Tatiana Pohofuva) represents Palach’s defiant mother (Jaroslava Pokorná) in a libel suit against a member of parliament (Martin Huba); her law partner (Adrian Jastraban) is strong-armed into collaborating in order to protect his firebrand daughter (Jenovefa Bokova); a secret police officer (Ivan Trojan) grows disillusioned by his unpalatable job. Holland was in Czechoslovakia at the time these events took place and it makes a difference: you feel like you’re breathing the very air of Czechoslovakia under totalitarian lockdown.
