Tajnosti (2007)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Alice Nellis

Release Date:

17 May 2007 (Czech Republic)

Genre:

Drama

Awards:

4 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Karel Roden	...	Richard
Natálie Drabiscáková	...	Ardana
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Iva Bittová	...	Julie
Igor Chmela	...	Young Man
Ivan Franek	...	Karel
Martha Issová	...	Cecílie
Miroslav Krobot
Sabina Remundova	...	Young Woman

Also Known As:

Little Girl Blue (International: English title)

Runtime:

Argentina:93 min

Country:

Czech Republic | Slovakia

Language:

Czech

Color:

Color

Certification:

Argentina:13

Company:

Biograf Jan Sverak

Roman Polanski

In my opinion Little Girl Blue is one of the most pretentious, utterly disengaging and at times even infuriating Czech films ever made. It certainly deserves a top rank amongst the most irrelevant pictures of the decade. Alice Nellis is a relentlessly overrated director whose work for me defines a new form of "artistic speculation." She has – God knows how – managed to woe herself into the caste of renown young Czech directors, and yet it is perhaps only her debut, Ene Bene, which deserves some praise. The fact that she received the New Director's Award in San Sebastian for her equally extraneous and stupefying film Vylet, is a mockery and an insult to all those talented newcomers around the world who have to fight hard for recognition. I would usually refrain from arguing that a director has been unjustly awarded for her or his work, but in this case I can not help being astonished and appalled.

The at times sophisticated imagery reveals a talent behind the camera: Ramunas Greicius, but the camera is wasted here, as well as Nina Simone's ingenious music. One of the greatest jazz performers of all time, Simone seems oddly misplaced in this substandard wannabe art film. Perhaps some foreign audiences can be easier inveigled into believing that Little Girl Blues represents a valuable piece of work, as they may think that the film's "mystifying" narrative is a mark of a geo-specific art form. It is not. This self-congratulatory and preposterous movie is bereft of true art. It is bereft of life, bereft of emotions.

That Alice Nellis has received so much praise can perhaps be attributed to the fact that there are so very few women making films about women. But this should by no means be considered as a criterion for judging a film's worthiness. I was born in this country and have lived here all my life; I am a woman, and I can only say that this film does not speak to my heart nor does it intrigue me on an intellectual level.

For me, the best part of Little Girl Blue comes with the end credits, not only because an irked viewer now finally breathes a sigh of relief, but also because the credits offer a particular treat, an involuntary joke so to speak. Under "second boom operator," a name is listed which, placed in this context, made me laugh: Roman Polanski. I got a kick out of imagining Polanski holding the boom for Nellis. Of course it is not the master himself who is being referred to here, but his name should nevertheless remind any cinema lover of the definition of greatness. While Polanski is synonymous to the best cinema has to offer, Nellis is most certainly antonymous to it.