The time for lackeys
On the 8th 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 1st of
November, 1989, and Vaclav Havel was unanimously elected as the President by
the Federal Assembly on the 29th 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.
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