«Cas sluhu» (1989)

The time for lackeys

On the 8^th of April, 1975 Vaclav Havel wrote a letter to the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Gustav Husak about a moral, cultural and intellectual crisis of the «normalized» Czechoslovakia. Particularly, the playwright wrote about current political system, which pushes the born lackeys to the top, which are ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.

Vaclav Havel summarized, that such a situation can only lead toward the gradual erosion of all moral standards, the breakdown of all criteria of decency, and the widespread destruction of confidence in the meaning of values such as sincerity and honor. In 14 years after the letter, when CSSR was living its last days, a young debutante Irena Pavlásková shot «Cas sluhu» - a film about Czechoslovakia in words of Vaclav Havel.

In beginning of the 1980s, a young medical student Dana dates a young international relations student Marek, until the day when young Prague inhabitant and a future young diplomat dumps this village girl. Dana gets so devastated and in order to kick Marek, she persuades her girlfriend Lenka to «lend» her boyfriend Milan (a young functionary in the Foreign Ministry) for a one-month marriage.

In 1980, Krzysztof Zanussi showed in «Constance» the closed and unpleasant world of the people, who were able to travel abroad and get foreign currency. Those were the workers, but the «crème» was functionaries in Foreign Ministry and diplomats, which were, rather, specific people. There were big dossiers on every diplomat and functionary and one snitch was a ground for dismissal. That is why their sphere was not characterized by such words, as trust and mutual help.

Any society, which artificially rations some goods (including foreign travel), oppresses freedom ad have a strong repressive apparatus, becomes crueler and nervous. The most enterprising inhabitants of such society are using any methods of advancement and they have real blood on their hands. Later, such people would start a cruel circus of wild capitalism, which was always quite familiar.

In 1980’s Czechoslovakia nobody believes in socialism and in two hours of the film, the only symbol of socialism is a portrait of Brezhnev in some government office. In this Czechoslovakia, everybody is concerned with self-advancement and the success is measured by your level of unscrupulousness.

Dana says that she moved to Prague in order to leave her unscrupulous mother and to earn an honest living as a doctor. Despite that, her subconsciousness remembers only one way of success and she catches the golden train, Dana becomes a cynical and calculating bitch. Even her looks are altered – from a bleak student she transforms into sexy woman, which radiates cruelty, ruthlessness and power.

New Dana promotes only herself and other people for her are merely garbage and instruments, and she doesn’t even bother to hide such attitude. She teaches others how to manipulate, play a double-face and to promote yourself at any price. Dana even helps to further the career of detested husband in order to get a grip on more luxury items. And in the end, a hard currency prostitute would point out Dana as equal, but maybe prostitute’s labor is more «honorable», than Dana’s.

The same letter to Husak, have an interesting passage about societal attitude for the opposing individuals. Vaclav Havel wrote, that those indifferent neighbors may expel opposing person from their midst, for appearance sake while sympathizing with him in secret or in private, hoping to still their conscience by clandestine approval of someone who acts as they themselves should, but cannot.

According to this words, Dana gets «flashes of conscience». She privately praises a colleague of Milan, who is not afraid to speak out, she asks mother to help with employment of Milan’s ex-girlfriend and even speaks out against Milan’s authorities. Furthermore, she takes a pleasant history researcher as a lover and feeds him stories about her upcoming divorce. Does it remind you about a gangster, who sponsors classical music and church renovation?

Despite that, when Dana is faced with true, but materially poor love, she sticks to the unloved husband, because he could provide her with foreign trips and she lost an ability to work and converse with usual people. No, love and truth would never prevail over lies and hatred in her life. And there are tens of thousands of Danas.

Combing the realistic portrait of «normalized» Czechoslovakia, the Director reaches another level with the universal story about internal void, which could happen in any country and under any regime. I agree, that «Cas sluhu» is a film, which parallels such films as «Decalogue» by Krzysztof Kieslowski.

«Cas sluhu» was released on the 1^st of November, 1989, and Vaclav Havel was unanimously elected as the President by the Federal Assembly on the 29^th of December, 1989. Vaclav Havel tried to heal the sick society, but Danas started to rip off the country. Nevertheless, Vaclav Havel was able to smooth this process, not unlike the other ex-socialistic countries, and not to lose his soul after 14 years of the presidency.

Watch «Cas sluhu», without any politics, maybe it will help you to think.