Sunday, October 17, 2010

3 Seasons in Hell by Tomas Masin

Film #2 at the BFI London Festival

“3 Seasons In Hell” is about the life of Ivan Heinz, a young Czechoslovakian poet as the Iron Curtain descends upon his country and people. His anarchic, bohemian spirit pours over into his poetry, into his friendships, into his father’s home, into every corner of his life… at the same time, he also meets another free spirit, Jana, who refuses to let him make love to her, hoping that this will drive his creative forces.

But even as he succumbs to the charms of chaos, rebellion and Marxism, the angles of his life repeatedly abrade against the newly formed Iron State. His friends are executed, he steals food to survive and his father’s house is 'socialized'. As he decides to make a last ditch attempt to flee to Paris, fate intervenes. But then again, so does the goodness of humans. Great casting; if Krystof Hadek (Ivan) is good, Martin Huba (Ivan’s dad) as a retired Colonel is impeccable.

Incidentally, I realized that the title is from Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell (Une Saison en Enfer)

2 comments:

B said...

i want to watch this.
and i want to know what makes them stay alive, friends dead and having to steal for food. it's all too sad. but i guess i shudnt pray for such a situation for myself, but oh, i need to UNDERSTAND this feeling/thought :P and dunno how will that work out without experience.

Ganja Turtle said...

You should... it was a biting elegy to the shaky romanticism in the post-WW2 days... it wasn't really sad but rather melancholic.

For the "I-must-understando", maybe you could try Viktor Frankl's "Mans Search for Meaning" where a Jewish psychiatrist tries to survive a concentration camp even as he dissects and records his mental/emotional experiences there.