“Servants” – Church and State [MOVIE REVIEW]
Samuel Skyva as Jiraj and Samuel Polakovik as Michal in “Servants.” Photo courtesy of Film Movement.
“Servants,” written by Marek Lescak, Rebecca Lenkiewicx, and Ivan Ostrochovsky and directed by Ostrochovsky, is a throwback to the golden age of the Czech New Wave cinema. The 1960s produced some of the greatest international films of the era including “The Shop on Main Street” by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos (Academy Award, 1965); “Loves of a Blonde” (Academy Award nomination 1967),The Firemen’s Ball” (1967) both by Miloš Forman; and “Closely Watched Trains” by Jirí Menzel (Academy Award, 1967). The arts in Czechoslovakia had been enjoying a resurgence during the late 1960s leading up to what was known as the Prague Spring in 1968. It ended abruptly when the Soviet military cracked down, invaded Czechoslovakia, reinstalled a Soviet-friendly government, and reversed all political and economic reforms. This was what they called a “normalization” to the old order and lasted until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. It was a death knell for Czech cinema because the government controlled what stories could be told, as well as by whom.
“Servants” takes place in the 1980s when the autocratic government held a vice-like grip on all aspects of society, including the Catholic Church. Opening on what appears to have been a murder, two men stop on a deserted street late at night, remove a body from the trunk of a non-descript sedan and drive off. Rewind to four months before this event. We meet Juraj and Michal as they say goodbye to their priest and embark on a journey to a well-known seminary to prepare for the priesthood. They are introduced to their father confessor, as well as the other young men who populate this school. Something is afoot, and soon Juraj becomes part of a clandestine protest against State control of what will be taught and to whom. This group of secret students is trying to follow the Vatican’s dictate that religion should be separate from politics but even the mentioning Vatican edict is enough to get one of the students spirited away.
Pacem Terris is a government sponsored group created after the Prague Spring to ensure that the church is run according to regime dictates. The head of the seminary is a member and will do anything and report on anyone so that his school will remain open. To stray from the party line will be devastating to the church hierarchy. But is it dogma at stake, or power?
The seminarians are at a crossroads. Who will support the doctrine they believe helps the people and who will support the government and report the others? The Party wants the Church to mold model citizens. It’s a murky question because ultimately it involves survival. But at what cost? What is the value of one dissenter?
Seminarians on a hunger strike in “Servants.” Photo courtesy of Film Movement.
There are definite heroes, definite villains, and lots in the gray area. What is revealed about some of the students, Juraj and Michal included, is not as it appears on the surface. Blackmail by the secret service has yielded conspirators on the inside of the clergy. When the confessional seal is broken, there can no longer be a sacred calling. Friend against friend, enemy against enemy, follower against leader. The overall tone of the film becomes more and more ominous.
Even the government functionaries are conflicted as their tactics become more and more draconian, as witnessed in that first scene when the body is dropped. It is telling that one of the two men responsible for the death and disposal has developed a rash, one that cannot be medically treated. As time and more dissenters disappear, his rash consumes his whole body, like a plague visited upon the soul of the guilty.
Ostrochovsky has chosen an extraordinarily bleak, evocative black and white palette, filmed with nuance by Juraj Chlpik. Taking a page from the Czech New Wave, his shots are both surreal and Kafkaesque, contributing enormously to the tone and subject matter of the film. The photography alone would be reason enough to see this film.
The director and writers have constructed a complex web of complicity evoking the eternal question of whether totalitarian control of the church controls the religion. Piecing together the sometimes disparate and non-sequential parts of this film may provide an answer.
In Slovak with English subtitles.
Opening Friday February 25 via Laemmle Virtual Cinema, VOD, and on Digital Platforms.