Riveting Tale of Crushing a Person’s Spirit in ‘Marian’

When Czech filmmaker Petr Vaclav was 17 he visited a correctional facility where his friend Jan Sikl, later a psychoanalyst, was working as a tutor. At that time he met a young Gypsy boy named Marian who struck him at once as noble yet frightening. Ten years later, with Sikl collaborating on the script, Vaclav made his 1996 film debut with “Marian,” a bold, uncompromising yet superbly controlled film.

“Marian,” which is set in the ‘70s and early ‘80s when the former Czechoslovakia was still a Communist state, is a portrait of a society whose institutions are designed to crush the individual absolutely--especially when that individual is part of a minority held in unabashed contempt.

At the age of 3 Marian is taken from his mother, who is declared unfit, and whose alcoholic father has deserted the family. The “collective” in which Marian is placed is a virtual prison, shabby and bare, and run by curt, rigid middle-aged women whose purpose in life is to make the lives of the Gypsy boys in their charge as miserable as theirs surely are.

Given mediocre food and shelter and absolutely no love, the boys are indoctrinated into Czech culture, Communist style, and are expected to be grateful.

Solidarity among the boys allows for some warmth, humor and prankishness but also consolidates their hatred for the institution in which they are trapped and for those who run it.

One day a teacher (Jaroslava Vyslouszilouva) does a truly terrible thing to Marian (Stefan Ferko), who is smarter, more in need of love and therefore more rebellious and vulnerable than the rest. This woman drops her bureaucratic severity in private just long enough to explain to the boy, who’s probably around 10 by now, that he has the potential for a decent life. Then not long after she punishes him severely and unjustly--sadly, she may feel she has no recourse.

This incident is provoked by another woman who’s such a power-mad, Gypsy-hating bureaucrat she refuses to give Marian and another boy an adequate amount of toilet paper when they request it. The teacher’s act of betrayal ultimately drives Marian to despair.

Between youth and adulthood Marian (now played by handsome Milan Cifra) actually has a brief period on the outside and actually begins an affair with a pretty, free-spirited Gypsy girl (Ludmila Krokova). Unfortunately, the depth of Marian’s needs are far beyond her comprehension; she cannot begin to understand why her flighty, flirtatious ways inflame his jealousy and cause him to treat her exactly in the same harsh manner he has been treated all his life.

There is a terrible inevitability to Marian’s destiny, but Vaclav has the talent and the passion to make Marian’s story totally stirring and utterly riveting, indicative of universal truths about the relationship of the individual and society and the eternal evil of racism. Vaclav has no need to indict--still, his film can surely be taken as a metaphor for the oppressive excesses of the old Communist regime.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film has considerable violence, strong language and is altogether unsuitable for young children.

‘Marian’

Stefan Ferko: Young Marian

Milan Cifra: Older Marian

Jaroslava Vyslouszilouva: Tosovska

Ludmila Krokova: Tina

A Turbulent Arts release of a Czecho-French co-production: Tosara Film, Ceska Televize, Czech Intl. Film, Kratky Film (Czech Republic)/Artcam Intl. Les Films de l’Observatoire (France), with the participation of La Sept Arte. Director Petr Vaclav. Producer Kristina Tosara. Screenplay by Vaclav and Jan Sikl. Cinematographer Stepan Kucera. Editor Alois Fisarek. Production and costume designer Ester Krumbachova. Music Jiri Vaclav. In Czech, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes.

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* Exclusively at the Grande 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 617-0268.