Skrzat

After more than fifteen years, Vorel returns to the genre with which he adorned the manifesto of Pražská pětka – the grotesque. But while Cesta na Karlštejn was a truly one-piece work, given the economical runtime and brisk anecdote construction, Elf has greater ambitions and multiple pitfalls. In fact, it resembles a sequence of anecdotes slapped together, some better some worse (sometimes the editing "hurts"). I consider the unbalance of sketches and also the music of MIG 21, which is very "tame", to be the most contradictory. If we take away the thought message, which is close to the wild dreams of a freshly adolescent anarchist in the run-up, there remains a film with a pleasant spirit, light cellar poetics and some really good spots that are accentuated by work with colors. I am half satisfied, because unlike the mature Out of the City, Elf is simply a cheerful farce for both the young and the old, which is not worth thinking about much and which does not leave a deep furrow in the mental field... (14.04.2005)

On the one hand, I understand that the whole concept of Elf makes sense to Vorel. There are his other projects around the theme as well as the ubiquitous motif of the elf, his various incarnations, comments, references to him... But if Elf is also the culmination of all this, I'm not entirely happy that this is where Tomáš Vorel Jr. finally took over the role of court actor - even though it's a comedy of the masses for the masses. With the transfer of the main ideas of his work to his son, Vorel Sr. becomes a spokesman for the younger generation and abandons his own generation in favor of the young to live through their through problems. It's also a major surprise that they also live their lives without having to face totalitarianism or revolution. The problem of the new age is that it’s routine and grey. And when we realize this, do we want to fight this together along with Elf? Vorel cast Marika Procházková and Ivana Chýlková among the new distinct faces. (28.06.2015)