Il Boemo

Certainly not a great film, more like a greatish film, and certainly not a successor of Amadeus. Even so, Il Boemo is a very good film, with which I actually have only one problem, I have no idea what Petr Václav wanted to tell me with Mysliveček's story. Really, I must have missed some crucial main idea, but that doesn't mean that I was bored while watching it. On the contrary, I enjoyed a number of well-written and acted scenes, of which I must mention especially the perfect dialogue with the chamber pot, which even Tarantino would not be ashamed of, the meeting with Mozart or the minimalistic but impressive reunion of Mysliveček and his twin brother (both played by Vojtěch Dyk, the film’s greatest trump card, he is really brilliant). Although the result looks more like an expensive TV production set mainly in interiors, than a classic feature film, I was pleased that it managed to justify its seemingly excessive running time. What's more, I would have added a quarter of an hour to make the ending less rushed. (23.11.2022)

So bland, pedestrian, trite and pointless that it's better to let review it with AI-generated gibberish than to waste time with it: Il Boemo tries to emulate its great predecessor, but unfortunately it lacks the freshness and energy we saw in Amadeus. This is despite the fact that the film features solid performances, especially Vojtěch Dyk in the lead role. But one can't help but notice that the story of Myslivečk's life gives a bland impression and his music, which should be the real star of the film, becomes more of a backdrop to the overall plot. Although the film is not what I would have liked, it is definitely worth watching and enjoy the glimpses of Baroque art. (23.02.2023)

Although in connection with the new Josef Mysliveček biography there is talk of the discovery of the forgotten, it is instead a reminder of him and his work to the wider public. Mysliveček's story lives on in Jakub Arbes' novel, in Sonja Špála's biographical novel, and in Stanislav Suda's opera, and long before Petr Václav, a documentary by Jaromil Jireš and a television production by Zdeněk Kubeček were dedicated to Mysliveček. Nevertheless, this new venture is a joyous event following Václav's documentary from the rehearsals of the new production of Mysliveček's opera L'Olimpiade. Moreover, Il Boemo is coming to the movie theaters simultaneously with another Czech biopic, Arvéd, which makes me even more satisfied, because domestic biopics were one of the most neglected genres. It is a great thing that the project was co-produced and that it was possible to fully depict the Italian years of Mysliveček's life. The interplay between Dyk and the Italian actors (and especially the actresses) is ideal, the dialogue is mostly in Italian, but there is also some German, Czech, and English. The individual images are powerful in their many emotions, the opera is incredibly vivid and energetic, and the last time something so exceptional was perhaps only achieved in Farinelli. I could imagine it containing an extra half hour so we could see some of the chapters from childhood and adolescence, and something extra about the fall to the bottom that was inevitable, but the reason for it only hinted at. I expected a lot and got even more. (23.10.2022)