The first documentary on Milan Kundera releases in Czech theaters
The Milan Kundera paradox is to make so much talk about him, without ever expressing himself. As is the case with things whose rarity increases the value, having the opportunity to approach this writer a little closer for a documentary that he has certainly not been expressly approved, but to which he is not sure. is not opposed either, is a masterstroke in itself.
The reason is undoubtedly mainly the angle chosen by Miloslav Šmídmajer who, while sketching the portrait of an author with a complex personality, introverted, who imposes it on those around him while locking as much as possible any narration relating to his life, has refused at the border the controversial subjects attached to it, such as that linked to a possible collaboration with the Czechoslovak political police in the 1950s:
“I have asked a lot of people about it. I even went to ask questions at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. I wasn’t going to talk about something without knowing what it was all about: I would have had to make a film solely on this affair, presenting each other’s arguments. Honestly, I have 95 minutes of documentary where I already could not fit everything I wanted on his literary work, I was not going to bring up a subject for which all the light has not been shed. “
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Miloslav Šmídmajer says it himself: it was first and foremost the literary work of Milan Kundera that interested him to dissect. And if the film tries to understand certain character traits of the man behind the author – his refusal of an interpretation of his work by himself, his opposition to any adaptations or even recently to translations into Czech -, the result is an essentially smooth image:
“This is the very first documentary to have been made on Milan Kundera. No one had ever turned on him before. I’m not the type to go and film an artist on their toilet or in awkward situations just to be original. What interested me, ‘was to know why there are so many myths, why he did not want to translate his French works into, why he not be the subject of films or articles, whereas in the end the reality turns out to be quite different. Finally, I wanted to know more about what makes the quality of his work that has made him a world-class writer. We don’t have many like that. So I don’t see why I’m hitting on someone who’s better than most of us. “
Whether in the Czech Republic and France, various relatives of Milan Kundera in the film to evoke the life and work of the author: the writer Milan Uhde, one of his closest friends, the writer Silvie Richterová or actor Jan Kačer who played the lead male role in the movie adaptation of the new Nobody’s Going to Laugh. On the French side, Yasmina Reza, Bernard-Henri Lévy or Antoine Gallimard to show the elements relating to the second part of Kundera’s life.
The director also drew on the rare film adaptations of Kundera’s works and the archives to build his film:
“From a very young age, Milan Kundera never liked to have their picture taken or even to be filmed. So most of the existing films where he appears, we have them in this documentary. They are either older archives, from the 1960s in particular, or they are extracts from French television channels. “
One of the archives used is the only radio interview Milan Kundera has given since the early 2000s. It was with a journalist from the Czech Radio station in Brno, Tomáš Sedláček. A sound document unique in itself, as Miloslav Šmídmajer reminds us:
“He’s the only person who managed to record an interview with Milan Kundera. So it’s very valuable, and he succeeded because they had known each other for decades. Of course, he had many refusals, but one day it worked! He smart, he found topics that interested Kundera. Kundera adores the composer Leoš Janáček for whom her father had worked. So when Tomáš Sedláček suggested doing something for Janáček’s birthday, Kundera agreed and that’s how this interview came about. He even managed to convince them to read excerpts from some of his essays and short stories. “
A chance that Miloslav Šmídmajer will have had in part, who was able to meet the Kundera couple in person:
“They won’t be filmed. They accepted an audio recording, so we recorded quite a long one of which we used a few short clips. During the shoot, we just did close-ups on books or footage, and there’s a moment when Milan Kundera sneaks past the camera. But I didn’t use this passage, they wouldn’t have liked it, and I didn’t want to want to needlessly. “