Landscape of My Heart

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, 2004, 64 min
Section: Czech Films 2004-2005

Synopsis

Like Late Night Talks with Mother (2002), Landscape of My Heart is another auto-documentary drawing on the poetics of both experimental reality shows and film essays. Here, director Jan Němec investigates the reality of his life, of fate and time. Demanding heart surgery, which he underwent at a Prague hospital, became the starting point for a meditation on life and death. A visit to Prague by American president George W. Bush and his wife Laura creates a parallel storyline of a similar documentary nature. ‘Small’ intimate history thus flows into ‘big’ history, which Němec integrates into the personal current of his own life course. The tools the director uses are not only reality and imagination, but also a standard camera and the 35 mm film stock that he and his fellow filmmakers use to arrive at the distinctive character of this motion picture.

About the director

Jan Němec (b. 1936, Prague) is a living legend whose works are philosophical essays or original playful creations with wider overtones. He debuted with the drama Diamonds of the Night (1964 — Grand Prix at the Mannheim IFF) which, just like his segment for Pearls of the Deep (1965) and the parables Martyrs of Love (1966) and The Party and the Guests (1966 — Gran Premio at the Bergamo IFF), is one of the most interesting titles to come out of the Czech new wave. He made short films domestically (Mother and Son, 1967; Oratorio for Prague, 1968) and in forced emigration (Metamorphosis, 1975; True Stories: Peace in Our Time?, 1988; The Poet Remembers, 1989). After the regime change of 1989, he returned home to work in features: The Flames of Royal Love (1990), Code Name: Ruby (1996) and his latest Toyen (2005). Late Night Talks with Mother (2002) and Landscape of My Heart (2004) are original experiments drawing on elements of both documentary and feature.