synopsis
This documentary focuses on composer and actor Jan Klusák. It portrays him in the roles he played in Jan Němec’s films
The Party and the Guests and
Martyrs of Love and also highlights Klusák’s
Čtyři malá hlasová cvičení (Four Little Vocal Exercises), which was composed using a theme from Franz Kafka. Following the performance of these “exercises” at Prague’s Theatre on the Balustrade, he went on to collaborate with E. Schorm and V. Chytilová. The film captures him at home (“I’m conservative; I can only work in my own room.”), in the corridor of the Rudolfinum and on walks in the Jewish Cemetery in Olšany. It inquires into his decision not to emigrate after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia (“When you’re unhappy, there’s nowhere to run from it.”). An alienating effect emerges towards the end of the work, as Klusák advises the crew to pan the camera towards themselves in the mirror. The work is a second-year exercise at FAMU’s Department of Film Directing.
biography
Marianne Samaan Worlicek Rosenbaum (1940–1999) came from a displaced Sudeten family originally from Litoměřice. She studied painting in Germany and graduated from the Department of Film and Television Directing at FAMU in 1972. She married her classmate, Syrian film student Gérard Samaan. While at FAMU, she also directed the films
Společenská hra (A Party Game, 1969),
Oslava pokračuje (The Party Goes On, 1971) and
Vojáček (The Little Soldier, 1972). In Germany, she went on to direct the children’s pacifist film
Peppermint-Frieden (Peppermint Peace, 1983), for which she was awarded the Max Ophüls Prize. With G. Samaan, she directed
Lilien in der Bank (Lilies in the Bank, 1996) and, independently, the television films
Tödlich gilt nicht (It’s Not Deadly, 1985) and
Das Sonntagskind oder der Umstände halber (The Sunday Child, or Due to Circumstances, 1988).
film details
| director: | Marianne Worliček |
| producer: | Lukáš Hanzal |
