Head - hands - hearT

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, 2010, 110 min
Section: Czech Films 2010 - 2011

Synopsis

1914. Colonel von Haukwitz dies under strange circumstances during a seance. His fiancée, the actress Klára Knabelová, discovers that his head, hands and heart were removed from his body after his death. Endeavouring to find out the truth behind this grizzly deed, she makes the acquaintance of her fiancé’s friend, Lieutenant Roth. Other parts of the body are being exploited by various occult practitioners, and military investigator Vrana sets off for Europe to seek them out and unravel the mystery. Austria-Hungary during the First World War and the post-war period provided the inspiration for an original and uninhibited yet logical vision by director David Jařab. This intimate tale of love without love, war without war, and sorcery without magic, finds an analogy between the present and an era determined to modernise, emancipate and liberate – and also to prevail and establish new myths. In a story told using somewhat different devices than is usual in genre films, the movie also examines the conflict between male and female intimacy.

About the director

David Jařab (b. 1971, Hranice na Moravě) studied direction at the Theatre Faculty of the Janáček Academy in Brno. From 1993 to 1998 his name was associated with Brno’s HaDivadlo theatre and, from 2002, with Prague’s Comedy Theatre. He has written or co-written a number of stage plays, the majority of which he also directed. In 1989 he became a member of the Brno-based surrealist circle A. I. V., and he has been a member of the Czech and Slovak Surrealist Group since the mid-1990s. He has published mainly in the revue Analogon, whose four-part TV-stage project Analogon Evenings (2002) he directed. He is also an artist. He incorporated his experience developing artistic and historical ideas in his feature debut Vaterland – A Hunting Logbook (2004 – Czech Lion award in 2005 for Best Art Direction).