Ženy pro měny

I have mixed feelings. I have my thoughts about the case of Karolína Chudá, a student at the University of Economics, and her purpose in life, filled with constant visits to supermarkets, her almost morbid addiction to fashion trends, and her undisguised disappointment that Dara Rollins has the same pants as herself, and I did have some fun at her expense, but I can hardly mock her obsession with her looks, unless it exceeds the norm, which I don't think is the case here, although the author tries to convince me otherwise. As Karolina presented the inventory of her bathroom with ten kinds of expensive body lotions, and all kinds of shampoos, soaps, bath foams and conditioners, I felt like I was walking with Alice in Wonderland from the position of a man with only one kind of soap and one kind of shampoo (as long as it foams and cleanses), but I guess it's hard to talk about some sort of submission to advertising manipulation here. Simply caring about one's appearance and being a woman, this fits together and applies from a hen at the Dolní Měcholupy train station to the British Queen. And the wannabe alarming headlines about how much is spent on cosmetics in the Czech Republic seem to be devoid of any value. The story of 15-year-old Zuzana, who aspires to a career as a model, also left me with mixed feelings. The moment during the interview, when the head of the casting agency convinces the skinny Zuzana to lose a but more weight, was chilling. It was almost unhealthy to see the figures of those girls who could be strumming their ribs, and it was here where Erika Hníková could have worked a bit harder to get closer to the feelings of potential anorexics. But Zuzana's life story is absolutely trouble-free, she ends up successful and it's hard to get rid of the impression that she can be an encouragement for other skinny girls and a confirmation of their "correct" actions in their attempt to lose some extra weight. Bizarre, and also conflicting, is the story of Eva, a sheet metal turner at Škoda, who has undergone two very expensive breast surgeries, and is now about to have a third, because of a 2 mm larger areola around her nipple. Interesting, but not really indicative of anything, because the author is showing too much of an extreme that is not indicative of the vast majority of today's women, or so I hope. And so the only story where the author hits the nail on the head is the fate of Magda, a woman who unnecessarily spent lots of money on slimming products, including a fraudulent "slimming" CD. I believe there are many women who saw themselves reflected in that story, and perhaps some of them were taken by it, and learnt by the beautifully cathartic point of Magda's efforts, her final "discovery" that the best and most effective thing to do is to move and not eat. Despite all my reservations, the undeniable fact is that Erika Hníková has made a documentary that, despite its unevenness, will not leave anyone indifferent. (28.11.2005)

Awfully amateurishly handled interesting theme. Technically and in terms of form and message. It is almost unbelievably naive - it doesn’t go into depth, but just tiresomely skims over the surface of the topic. It jumps from one subject to the next and then all storylines apart from one somehow fizzle out... Especially the opening story with the women’s magazines disappears into thin air without any conclusion. It supposedly addresses some problem for fifteen minutes and then goes on to a completely different topic. This theme could have been used to make a hugely powerful documentary. Instead, we get to watch some randomly edited together interviews with no head or tail, not to speak of a common concept, with sound engineers running about in the background and the microphone comes into shot more often than the separate women. It isn’t at all clear who this documentary is aimed at and what the director wanted to achieve by it. She touched on this and that, but in the end she says nothing about anything. Women who live their live according to Cosmo (and other similar mags) will continue doing so. This documentary is equally superfluous as the “Model for the New Millennium" contest that appears in it which takes place twice a year. Do you get that? Nor do I. (07.08.2007)