Directed by:
Juraj JakubiskoScreenplay:
Juraj JakubiskoCast:
Anna Friel, Karel Roden, Vincent Regan, Hans Matheson, Deana Horváthová-Jakubisková, Bolek Polívka, Jiří Mádl, Anthony Byrne, Lucie Vondráčková (more)Plots(1)
"The gruesome tale of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, notorious yet obscure, has been recounted by historians, writers, poets, playwrights, musicians, painters and moviemakers. Tradition has it that Countess Bathory was the greatest murderess in the history of humankind, as documented by her entry in the Guinness Book of Records. She tortured her victims, exclusively women, before killing them. She bathed in their blood, and tore the flesh from their bodies with her teeth while they were still alive. But is that really true? In four centuries, no historical document has been found to reveal what had exactly happened. The plot of my film diametrically opposes the established legend. My story is about a defenseless widow who owns more property and riches than the king himself and who, as a result, becomes a victim of scheming from on high." - Juraj Jakubisko (Metrodome Distribution)
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A major misstep and a cynical mockery of all those who believed the advertising campaign about "the most expensive Czech-Slovak film." And to dryly reply that "you definitely can't see where the money went in the film" is not enough for me this time. The "cleansing" of the legend itself is not bad at all, as Anna Friel is excellent and Karel Roden takes over every scene, but... where the plot requires a few more sentences and two more shots to explain "why and how?", Jakubisko prefers to play lyricist in mono-thematic images of "drug highs" and plenty of nudity. Together with a couple of cameramen, he "paints" the surrounding landscape fantastically, and even in the cheap exteriors of the village he doesn't hold his breath. But then there’s the memory of the battle with the Turks and the viewer is back in the land of Central Europe, where we apparently cannot be as worldly as we would like. Sometimes big shoulders, foreign names, and a big wallet are not enough, which is a pity because I was looking forward to this film.
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Lots of people criticize Jakubisko for choosing his own path and not following in the footsteps of Nižnánský’s novel. But I thank him for that. You see, I am allergic to Jožo’s “Čachtická Paní". Black and white, slap-dash nonsense. On one side terribly mean noblemen who don’t have anything better to do than spend sleepless nights thinking up how best to be mean to regular folks, not forgetting then to share their diabolical plans in a fit of crazy laughter to a poor woman who is of course sensible, moral, always honest and absolutely principled without any blemish on her. All this presented in a style that wouldn’t have gotten an F even in elementary school. Not to speak about the incredible frequency of clichéd sentences like “All around was thick forest and it was so dark that it could be cut with a knife." No, thank you. At least I found Jakubisko’s “realistic" version at least likeable, even though it is still the same legend, just inside out. Here, Elizabeth is portrayed almost like a saint and the only source of evil is Thurzó and his wife. So this has nothing to do with being realistic. Unfortunately Juraj chose to worst possible running time. It’s too short for what he wants to say. And it’s too long for what he should have wanted to say. His approach of including a bit of everything, resulting in nothing in the end just doesn’t work. He should have simply edited out anything that doesn’t directly concern the conflict between Báthory and Thurzó. Leaving everything else for a TV version lasting several hours. Among its strong points, I should certainly highlight the interior camerawork, the music, the costumes and the main cast (primarily Anna Friel and Karel Roden). However, the rest of it isn’t so great. And it’s a shame, because I wouldn’t hesitate to rate the main storyline very highly, while the rest of it (mainly the horrendous post-production dubbing and awful exterior camerawork) deserves barely two stars. And I would give zero stars for the Monks duo, utterly superfluous, combining the Name of the Rose with the ingenuity of the central pair from Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz a Guildenstern Are Dead". So a little higher than mediocre, hiding a diamond-tipped needle that you occasionally glimpse shining in the corner of your eye, but that immediately disappears again into a rotting haystack.
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Kindly uninitiated viewers will forgive me, but when I first read several very different books on the subject of Bathory long ago in the year 2000, I came to a similar position to the one Jakubisko presents today in his latest blockbuster. So logically, I'm excited. I see the entire negative media halo around the film as a pure reaction to the endless delaying of release dates and the general hype around the cost, which is none of the audience's business anyway. On November 9, 2009, I finally got the DVD and I can better take stock of my older movie theater experience. My basic understanding of it truly doesn't change. The biggest scarecrows of the project (Mádl and co.) were only cast in supporting roles anyway, and the entire dynamic of the story, which is by the way visually wonderfully sophisticated, is based on Jakubisko's direction and set design, camera work by Ďuriš, Brabec and Kende, music by Jirásek, and costumes by Pecharová. I, of course, appreciate Jakubisková's work for her perseverance and I fell in love with Anna Friel's performance. It made such a strong impression on me that I don't have to deal with the fact that the trio of Roden, Regan, and Matheson doesn't work that well for me. On the other hand, Monika Hilmerová was also excellent and Jakubisko's "discoveries" from Post Coita Pogodová, Greneche, and Elsnerová were absolutely fine. I have had the opportunity to watch all three versions - Czech, Slovak, and English, all the omitted scenes, and my enthusiasm for it only grows stronger. I can't wait for the planned series cut, which I hope will be dominated by Erzsébet Czobor. Moreover, knowing that since the end of the 1950s only B-movies, or at most one decent Hammer horror film, have been made on the subject of the Čachtice legend, I can safely compare Jakubisko's version with Viktor Kubal's magnificent animated film The Bloody Lady and be satisfied.
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Where’s the splatter movie about a woman who bathed in blood? Herbs, after all... how lame. Boring, no atmosphere, nothing worth remembering. The story doesn’t hold together and of the actors, only Roden sticks out, the others don’t deliver anything special, but on the other hand it’s not embarrassing (even Upír Krejčí was ok in his mini-role :-). But mainly I had the feeling that this movie lasted about three and a half hours. Never again.
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Well, it turned out better than Janosik: A True Story, thank goodness for that. But not by much. Unlike the aforementioned bandit, I didn't have as much of a problem following Bathory to the end, because most of the time there was at least something and someone to watch. Primarily Anna Friel and Karel Roden. Thanks to Brabec's cinematography, quite a few scenes looked as if the director had borrowed them from Wild Flowers or, even worse, from Máj, but at least I got the impression that most of them belonged in the film and that they were not just the director's "Oh, look at the beautiful pictures" whim. The biggest minuses are definitely the "funny" characters of the monks, the annoying dreams and hallucinations... And Franco Nero. His fans will forgive him, but he didn't need to be here at all and everything would have been fine. But apparently it was necessary to attract "star" names. Well, whatever. In the end, I come out with three slightly, slightly above average stars.
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Photo © Jakubisko Film Slovakia
![Bathory - Making of](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/162/340/162340040_112358.png)
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