The Hastrman

You’ll sometimes hear people say that any film is as good as the main protagonist. In this case, the creators made a good choice when they cast the demonic Karel Dobrý. Sadly, in the last twenty minutes or so, Havelka totally drops the ball as a screenwriter and director; arbitrary horror elements are shoehorned into the plot only to fizzle out without rhyme or reason. It’s a shame. In any case, Simona Zmrzlá made my jaw drop – in a good way. To me, she’s the biggest acting discovery of recent years. She’s charismatic, with primal wildness, yet graceful, and a natural actor – I’d love to see her in more films in the future. (09.03.2020)

As soon as I saw the title, I remembered the classic Czech 1970s song by Ronny Marton “Hastrmane, tatrmane, melou...” but the movie Hastrman isn’t that hilarious. Quite on the contrary, it is a well-made ballad about a water spirit looking for happiness in the human world, which gets the plot moving. The director Ondřej Havelka made his first movie in big style. Actor-wise it was fantastic. Karel Dobrý as the water spirit was phenomenal and I liked Jiří Lábus just as much. Musically there’s nothing to complain about as Mr. Havelka can work well with music and he left nothing to chance. On the contrary. Someone may criticize the abstractness of some scenes but to me these scenes worked well with the fantasy-like environment. Similarly, I liked the Czech locations, which the handy cameraman literally relished. I immediately looked up where the film was made. Yes, Hastrman isn’t a bad movie. A little unconservative but all the more interesting. (27.03.2019)

A confused, tonally unbalanced and awkward adaptation, which is held above the surface mainly by a creative camera. However, Havelka was unable to translate Urban's lyrical style into film speech at all, Hastrman amounts to wooden theater - a sweaty television work. The film also absolutely lacks pace, and the book chapters further support the impression that this film swallows little angels and kicks out in vain. The book is an eccentric, black-humor, grotesque and horror meditation on the relationship between man and the land - a game with a beast in us. The film is such a dried-up frog embryo that can only be used for funny literal quotes by Kaspar David Friedrich and exaggerated scenes that beg for placement in a cup with the label GUILTY PLEASURE. (19.04.2018)

On paper, the subject of the Havelka-directed The Hastrman looks much better. This adaptation of Miloš Urban's novel, which was awarded the Magnesia Literary Prize a few years ago, is really different from most Czech films today. For that, I thank him endlessly. Still, it's a subject for a series, a cycle, or at least a two-part film. To grasp such a layered text and implement only part of it is not ideal. Moreover, the enjoyment of the text and the identification with the Hastrman works almost instantly thanks to their form; in the film, we lose this intimacy. Voice-over does not improve Karel Dobrý's performance, quite the opposite. Simona Zmrzlá's liveliness and bluntness would work better paired with someone else. Unfortunately, even in the few scenes she had with Vladimír Polívka, it was possible to perceive the connection between their characters, which the Dobrý/Zmrzlá pair failed to do throughout the whole film. Nevertheless, the material is interesting, and in combination with the book it is truly inspiring, but the first experience was weak. I hope that during the rerun, the whole thing improves by at least one star. (24.08.2019)

I simply liked Hastrman, and if it hadn't been for those few nonsensical moments, I'd have happily added a fifth star. Karel Dobrý was excellent, and I found the baron's internal struggle absolutely convincing. Simona Zmrzlá was definitely a good choice and Jiří Lábus showed again that he should be cast in serious roles more often. I enjoyed a mixture of the lyrical and the epic, a well-chosen soundtrack and the somewhat depressing atmosphere. (04.05.2019)