In 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. Prominent Czech New Wave filmmaker Jan Němec filmed the invasion, then smuggled the footage over the border into Austria. Forty-one years later, he released this narrated account, in which the footage shot that day is intercut with modern recreations of the journey, with actors portraying Němec himself as well as sidekicks Enrico, an Italian journalist, and Jana, the titular Ferrari Dino Girl.
Beautiful and compelling at times, the film ultimately works neither as a documentary nor as a narrative. The '68 footage captures little of the much-stated violence of the invasion. Němec seems to arrive at each scene just after something dramatic has occurred, so all we see is the aftermath--people standing around, an occasional injury or burning vehicle, bullet holes in buildings and windows.
It would be ridiculous to critique such things or demand greater excitement from a straight documentary, of course, and the footage Němec captured is certainly valuable as a historical document. Indeed, it was undoubtedly even more valuable at the time, as it was almost the only footage of the invasion that made it to the world outside of Czechoslovakia. However, in seeking to elevate his story from documentary to some sort of entertaining, romantic narrative-doc hybrid, Němec both compromises the documentary nature of the piece and invites criticism.
He further undermines himself with the casting of Jana. Although it is never made entirely explicit in the film, the real Jana was a popular actress who had been described as the sexiest woman in Czechoslovakia. Tammy Sundquist, who portrays her, is a lovely girl, but that's all. She capers charmingly, mugs in Enrico's hat, looks about seventeen, and utterly fails to live up to Jana's legacy or communicate what it was that compelled Němec to love her so much that he would rather see her safe across the border with another man--the film's vague and slippery romantic subtext--than keep her with him. Her extreme youth next to Němec-the-character's fortyish appearance proves a further distraction, as does all of the characters' modern attire.
Where the film triumphs is as a paean to the Czech New Wave, which, although it had been waning for some time before, the August 1968 Soviet invasion effectively ended. The elegiac quality of the modern footage and the voice-over narration can be understood even better in that light and perhaps even forgiven for its occasionally maudlin quality.
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