Most of us have heard about the famous #Czech New Wave# film movement of the 1960s, but few have woken up to the fact that there is a strong new generation of Czech documentary filmmakers, making a new wave into film history. Pleasingly to see, this movement is well represented by a substantial group of strong female directors and they build their language on a rich cultural heritage. What characterizes their films is the playfulness of their storytelling that is pungent with a great amount of self-irony and humor. The graver the topic, it seems the more surrealistic the storytellers’ approach.
Apolena Rychlíkova’s The Czechs Are Excellent Mushroom Pickers is a great example of this. It is a movie that could easily be defined as a «classic» upon first viewing if it hadn’t been for that quirky title, but then again, that is the daring beauty of this film. It wasn’t made with the eye for reaching the gold mine of Netflix, nor was it marketed for the world public, although it definitely could have, considering it is a gaily summarization of how horrible the state of our planet is.
Inspecting the human species
If you ever fantasized of watching a David Attenborough program inspecting the human species and their absurd behaviors, with the same scrutiny as he has studied ants or apes, then this film is a witty take-off of just that. The film is wrapped up like a typical Czech children’s television program, with a kind, nice male voice commenting on what we see, although this time the male is in a dialog with a female machine. He has just returned from an expedition on planet Earth where he made a study of the Czech sapiens (a metaphor for Homo sapiens) and he feels really tired, actually, almost too tired to comment the whole film as he says himself. When asked by the machine if he would like to return to planet Earth he says definitely not as he sees the human situation on the beautiful planet rather futile.
The graver the topic, it seems the more surrealistic the storytellers’ approach.
The naive questions from the female machine and his answers describing the absurdity of human actions brings not only humor to the picture, but it also enables us to digest some dreadful truths about our existence. Told with an anthropological point of view, as if he had studied a far-off exotic tribe, he is stating simple stark facts on the Czech sapiens with their recently adapted American lifestyle. Scene by scene he comments on their absurd relationship with their private pools, their lawns, their water resources, the heat, the cows, the soil, the trees, and. of course, the mushrooms. It is first when the Czech sapiens can no longer find a mushroom in the forest that they realize something is wrong.
Common denominators
Mushroom picking is about the only common denominator for the highly diverse Czech population, and the film is after all, about the Czech sapiens, although, in reality, it is about all of us living within a modern consuming society. The final scene leads us to the conclusion that we are not only killing the mushrooms but also ourselves by diminishing the greatest gift given to Earth, namely the forests.
This film brings back memories of when I, as a naive sixteen-year-old, student watched Koyaanisqatsi – Life out of Balance for the first time. It was a film that sent chills down my spine and set my worldview for life. The Czechs Are Excellent Mushroom Pickers has the same strong message and use some of the same cinematographic language. While Koyaanisqatsi was a grave movie constructed as visual tone poem without dialogue nor vocalized narration, The Czechs Are Excellent Mushroom Pickers has a playful story frame built on a witty scripted narration done by the director herself in cooperation with Hynek Trojanek. The symbolic film language is captured with beautiful cinematography. The highly polluted landscape becomes «beautiful» imagery counterpointed with effective, minimalistic music composed by Dominik Gajarský.
All generations
The movie is an excellent wakeup call that will apply to all generations of viewers. Children might even think they are watching a children’s program lured by the fairytale voice guiding them through. The question remains, what good will it do? When the newsbreaking The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was published in 1962, it clearly pointed out that our agriculture and food production was depleting life on Earth. Although the book trigged the rise of ecological movements, it did not change the way the wheels are turning. #Francis Ford Coppola# produced the mesmerizing Koyaanisqatsi in 1982 thinking it was his life responsibility. Despite becoming a #cult film#, it did not halt our progress toward self-destruction. All in all, it is actually very depressing when we realize how fast things are spinning in the wrong direction, but as the voice tells us before he leaves the planet for good, «the humans are extraordinary in how they manage to isolate themselves away from their problems.»
It is first when the Czech sapiens can no longer find a mushroom in the forest that they realize something is wrong.
The Czechs Are Excellent Mushroom Pickers is a film gem that certainly will shine bright through time and it would surprise me if it didn’t become a little Czech cult film. I keep my fingers crossed and make a wish that it will travel the world. If we cannot save the planet, let us at least be inspired by the Czechs and laugh at our own absurdity.
The film premiered at the #One World# Festival in Prague.
