Kawasaki Rose: Beautiful

6. 7. 2010 / Ema Čulík

This film is compelling, beautiful and tragically honest.

It is compelling, because it slowly and carefully reveals the truth hiding in Josek's past. The crew is filming him and his family, and we gradually get more and more information about the doctor. Then they somehow find a set of documents that apparently nobody had seen for years -- secret police reports of Josek's assistance - information he acquired during psychological interviews. They start interviewing the people involved -- secret police officer Kafka, and Josek's wife's first boyfriend Bořek. For his own personal reasons, the sound man Luděk gives these papers to his wife, who then confronts Pavel, who, it appears is not really her father, and her mother. What is nice about how it is revealed is that we are given some hints before actually being told the whole story. Here the filmmakers are following the golden advice of Billy Wilder, who said, "Let the audience put two and two together. They'll love you for it forever." The element of intrigue in the film will make it interesting to almost anyone, as it pulls you into the story and captivates you. However, there is much more to this film.

It was so beautiful to look at. The gorgeous camera work of Martin Šácha reminded me of old photographs and memories, with the colours sometimes pale, sometimes lightly overexposed, the flares of light coming from people's heads. The rainbow glow of Gothenburg, where Bořek had been exiled to, made it look like a magical dream world.

Most importantly though, the people. Kawasaki Rose is not only about solidarity and principles, it's also about people's relation to the past, and also about the conflict of family and society. If Pavel's son-in-law hadn't been the sound man on the documentary about him, the whole thing might not have exploded to such an extent. Besides, most of the scandal in his actions was concerned with how he had treated his family. His daughter had lived for thirty six years believing in the figure of her father, only to receive this shock from a set of faded papers. For the public, his image has been damaged, they can no longer think of him in a certain way, he has lost his integrity. But for his family, he has become a totally different man. From father he becomes a stranger as the people who had been growing up with him for so many years realise that they do not know him at all. Of course, the reason for his actions also came from his family and was deeply personal. People on the outside do not realise what is going on in people's lives as it is all happening behind closed doors. Perhaps nobody had even been aware that Pavel had known Bořek. These family stories can seem so complicated, society cannot know all the details and factors which led Josek to betrayal.

The opinion of society is fickle. It never knows all the details and even more seldom remembers them. Being a figure in the public eye can be dangerous as what people think of you may have little relation to what you have actually done in your life. This film proves that only families can pass on the truth, because only they know the full story. Society has its own interests and is ruthless. It only passes on information depending on the current day politics. The way that society talks will be totally different under different idealistic regimes. Hence the teenage granddaughter (thoughtful and sensitive though she is) says, "I don't know why people keep going on about all of this." For young people born in the late 1980s, most of the troubles that adults who lived under communism can seem extremely foreign or even incomprehensible. The adults do not always pass everything on to their children. Understandably so, how were we supposed to comprehend it all? I too, have had recent discoveries about my parents, and my Russian boyfriend also found out some extremely surprising things about his great-grandparents, because, as his mother explained, "One just didn't talk about such things." I can say that this experience is very close to us, and I expect other people of my generation in Czech, Russia, and other former Communist states.

For this reason, Hřebejk's film is truly powerful -- it speaks not only to the people who lived through these terrible times, but also to those who have inherited this history and who must not forget it.

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