Návrat idiota (1999)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Sasa Gedeon

Writers:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (novel)
Sasa Gedeon (writer)

Release Date:

25 February 1999 (Czech Republic)

Genre:

Romance | Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

First impressions of second loves.

Plot:

Frantisek, the main character is returning to his family. Until now he's been, "successfully" avoiding all relationships...

Plot Keywords:

Foreign Language Adaptation | Tragicomedy | Based On Novel

Awards:

26 wins & 10 nominations

Cast

Pavel Liska	...	Frantisek
Anna Geislerová	...	Anna
Tatiana Vilhelmová	...	Olga
Jirí Langmajer	...	Emil
Jirí Machácek	...	Robert
Zdena Hadrbolcová	...	Mother of Emil and Robert
Jitka Smutná	...	Mother of Anna and Olga
Pavel Marek	...	Mole
Anna Polívková	...	Girl #1
Yvetta Janousková	...	Girl #2
Petra Kolárová	...	Girl #3
Josef Oplt	...	Dance master
Petr Vydra	...	Dance courses assistant
Michal Rausar	...	Schoolboy
Alena Olahová	...	Waitress

Also Known As:

Die Rückkehr des Idioten (Germany)
Return of the Idiot (Canada: English title)
The Idiot Returns (International: English title)

Runtime:

Argentina:100 min | Czech Republic:99 min | France:100 min

Country:

Czech Republic | Germany

Language:

Czech

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Czech Republic:12 | France:U | Hong Kong:IIA

Filming Locations:

Brno, Czech Republic

Company:

Ceská Televize

Movie Connections:

Version of Hakuchi (1951)

James Cole's kid cousin at the Firemen's Ball

A person arrives from an institution into the "normal" world and sees our everyday reality with fresh eyes. What is normal? What is sane? Where does reality end and dreams begin? Can a pure, vulnerable person cause his segment of the world to clean itself from a contagion that threatens to wipe it out?

These questions and characteristics are equally relevant to the Czech movie "The Idiot Returns" and to Terry Gilliam's "12 monkeys". The basic difference is one of scale: in "12 monkeys", James Cole is expected to save the entire human race from a deadly virus, while Frantisek in "The Idiot Returns" blunders into a maze of tainted personal relationships within the circle of a family. James is physically and mentally strong in order to have a chance to withstand the strain of time travel, while the most challenging journey Frantisek makes is the train trip from his mental institution to the small town that his relatives live in. The two protagonists are strikingly similar in that it is their openness and vulnerability that enables them to become the catalysts of a hopeful development. James perceives objects of wonder in a spider, corny music on the radio, even the open air itself. Frantisek sees something good in everyone, holds no grudges, can find a positive interpretation for every seemingly nasty utterance or reaction.

Nonetheless, "The Idiot Returns" is a thoroughly Czech movie. We find none of the usual trappings of mainstream American film: there are no firearms in evidence, the physical violence is as restricted as it is significant, quarrels happen mostly between the lines of dialogue instead of outright in Ricki Lake-ish shrieks. In particular the dance hall scenes, the trivial fun and games while people's individual universes are falling apart, bring us right back into Forman's "The Firemen's Ball", together with his particular variety of Feliniesque parades of bizarre-looking characters.

Those of us with a Central European background get jolted right back into a familiar claustrophobia of meticulously tidy Christmas sitting-rooms and the keeping up of appearances, where people over coffee and cookies participate in carefully subdued mental dog fights that would make any sane person renounce family life forever. ("We have to show Frantisek what it's like to be a family!" Yeah. Right.)

And yet James Cole and Frantisek are at least cousins, each of them adapted to their own corner of the woods. If "12 monkeys" is a big concerto, "Návrat idiota" is a string quartet, or rather a clarinet quintet (a foursome and one divergent voice) - over the same theme.