Directed by:
Jan HřebejkScreenplay:
Petr JarchovskýCinematography:
Martin ŠtrbaComposer:
Aleš BřezinaCast:
Aňa Geislerová, Stanislav Majer, Jiří Černý, Kristýna Badinková Nováková, David Máj, Jiří Šesták, Jana Radojčičová, Matěj Zikán, Vlastimil Dušek (more)Plots(1)
Psychological drama Honeymoon concludes a film trilogy – together with two previous Hrebejk's films Kawasaki's Rose and Innocence. The common theme of the three films is a reflection about guilt from past and the possibilities of forgiveness. The intimate story of Honeymoon takes place during one afternoon, night and next morning at a family cottage, where an uninvited guest disrupts a wedding celebration. The story is conceived as a metaphor for social (im)possibility of getting over a tragic past. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (8)
The film looks as if its creators were trying to make a B movie thriller from the 1990s, which does not go hand in hand with Hřebejk's poetics of humorous supporting characters. This special comedic-dramatic mix survives thanks to the camera and great actors. However, a strong story, a meaningful plot construction and, above all, focus, are all missing. This is rather a disappointment due to the missed opportunity.
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The dialogue was at times so silly you couldn't possibly say it, the acting unconvincing for the camera – it would have worked in the theatre and there would have been ovations, but it didn't fit a film. A good nibble here and there and you get the feeling that’s how it would happen and it all feels natural, but then it's broken up by bad acting or moronic dialogue. Here and there a nice image, but this film is not artistic... where is Czech cinema headed? :-D
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Honeymoon is a tense drama about guilt, responsibility and shadows of the past that will catch up with you.
Psychologically precise, with only one or two editing lapses (read: WTF moments), it constantly leaves the audience in
doubt as to where the truth is and who is lying, who the villain is and who the victim is. There is also welcome comic
relief in the character of the sister’s husband, who prefers to sleep on the toilet when he’s drunk.
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When I was about 8-14 years old, I suffered from the fact that whenever something on TV appealed to me and I thought it was cool or importantly adult, without usually understanding what the movie was about, I would store various sections of the movie and its atmosphere in my mind and try to replicate them in my own work. That's how I remember when I was writing a story about a ritual killer on the streets of old Prague whose motivations date back to Nazi times (we had Se7en on tape, which I had ultimately ripped off, as did The Crimson Rivers) or a short story about how a mysterious figure returns to a remote village at the beginning of the last century and disfigured bodies start appearing in the fields (I had seen the trailer for Sekal Has to Die and the grim faces of the villagers in the middle of the suspiciously golden fields made it clear that the plot just needed a few disfigured corpses, plus I thought the title was cool). I consider the masterpiece to be an action story created after I'd seen Die Hard 3, which culminated in a scene where, during a fiery speech by the Prime Minister, a barrel of special chemical fluid flies through the window on either side of his lectern, and when they combine together they explode horribly. (...go ahead and laugh; what Netflix would give for that these days). Yeah and then you have the forty-three year old Jarchovský – a renowned, Czech Lion-winning screenwriter who has just seen a Nordic Drama (tm) and started waving his little hands and yelping while the credits are still rolling, and his wife knows immediately – she sticks a pen in one hand, paper in the other, and his big toe in his mouth so he can concentrate, and by midnight his work is finished. By morning Hřebejk has figured out that it has to be in a luxurious farmhouse under the cold orange lights of sunsets, sunrises, and decorative bulbs, so the peeling facade of idyll and better society can be seen. He automatically calls the last 6 numbers dialed to put together the cast and from that point on, God’s will be done. _______ There's something sadistically charming in knowing exactly what the actors are trying with comical urgency to achieve, how the director wants to be formally relevant, but still can't squeeze it out of the declamatory script, and ultimately you end up with some crazy scenes where a seemingly drunken pregnant Geisler screams at her newlywed husband in scripted fashion and a mega-important ten-minute close-up of the theater (not really film) actor Černý's face testifying that their kisses have always been salty from tears. I still have some sympathy for H+J here, because at least it's trying to be a bit naturalistic and unsettling for the Czech viewer, but surely there can be no worse combination than trying really hard at something intensely weighty only to end up dragging it into the ridiculous.
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I can't help but think this film is extremely well constructed, where you have an almost uncomfortable sense of something terrible that could happen. This may not come to fruition in the way you expect, but the film is still quite gritty in its second half. This is where Hřebejk's mastery of gradually revealing what is important comes into play.
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