45th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival: First Report

The 45th Karlovy Vary Film Festival got off to a low-key start last Friday with the Czech premiere of Crazy Heart – you know, the film that's just like The Wrestler with country music except that managed to win its leading man (Jeff Bridges) an Oscar. Bridges wasn't in attendance, sadly, and, reflecting an alarming trend at many European festivals this year, neither were many other stars. I think it might even be possible to say that the golden age of film festivals is over, in that respect. Which is ironic, because in other fields of the arts – music, say – festivals are getting bigger and stronger. But I think a few festivals could benefit from asking themselves a few questions this year, mostly along the lines of “Who are we for?” and “Who are we serving?” I say this because I think the disjunct between filmmaker and audience is starting to grow wider than ever, and in Edinburgh especially I'm disheartened by the number of journalists who use the (excellent) videotheque service, a system that certainly fuels reviews but doesn't do much to encourage interaction.

One of the things I love about Karlovy Vary is that attendance at public screenings is made very, very easy; there are four free tickets, plus press screenings for accredited journalists. If you ever go, I'd recommend seeing something from the retrospectives; this year, I caught screenings of Michael Powell's The Red Shoes (1948), introduced by his widow Thelma Schoonmaker; Terrence Malick's Days Of Heaven; and Brian Trenchard-Smith's The Man From Hong Kong (1975). All of these were shown in a huge, 1,145-seater cinema, to audiences that ranged from teens to pensioners; it is possibly the only place in the world where you can see one of Robert Altman's 70s classics sat next to a couple of young girls with tattoos and piercings, as I did a couple of years ago.

I'll start with a couple of Czech films, though, as that was how my festival experience began. The first was called Kooky, although the Czech title, Kuky se vrací, literally means Kooky Returns, a pun on the classic Lassie movie. Directed by Jan Svěrák, Kooky promised to be a fun, surreal family movie, and the poster had me at hello. But, sad to say, I didn't really fall for its charms; I was hoping for something a little more aggressively weird, if not downright bonkers from the country that gave us Jan Švankmajer and Jiří Trnka . Part of this was to do with the English subtitles, that were very verbose, but I wasn't really drawn into the world of Kooky himself, the googly-eyed pink teddy bear that you see at the top of this very page.

At the start of the film, Kooky, much like the cast of Toy Story 3, is finding his tenure coming to an end. His human owner is growing up and has asthma, so the boy's mother gives him an ultimatum: he must make a choice between his allergy-friendly washable toys or she'll throw everything out. Kooky ends up in the bin – well, he doesn't really, but this bit is quite confusing – and the boy prays for his safe return. At which point Kooky comes to life and makes his escape from the rubbish dump (another coincidental TS3 parallel), only to be pursued by a patrol of plastic bags that wish to take him back. Instead, like a little pink machine-washable Raoul Moat, he hides out in the forest, where a strange bulbous character called Captain Goddamn (I couldn't quite figure out what he was; sort of a potato that could train squirrels) looks after him. It sounds great on paper, but I found the story a little repetitive and the final twists and turns just didn't work for me. I hear a dubbed English version is in the pipeline, and with the right voice cast (and some editing), it might be worth another look. However, I'm not sure it has much breakout potential outside the Czech Republic.

Another film that greatly intrigued me was the Czech doc Heaven, Hell (Nebe, peklo) by David Čálek, which I knew nothing about, other than it was produced by the team behind Tereza Nvotova's quirky autobiographical doc Take It Jeasy, aka Jesus Is Normal! (Jezís je normální!). Like Nvotova's film, this was an unusual take on a very little-known subject: the practice of sado-masochistic bondage in the Czech Republic. Looking at three (well, actually four or five, if you include the pro and her 'helper') different characters involved in the BDSM scene, it's a refreshingly non-judgement film about the sexual awakenings of three really very ordinary individuals.

I'm not quite sure who the audience really is for this film, because some of the things depicted are not exactly comfortable viewing (a hooded man has stinging nettles thrust into his crotch after suction cups and needles are stuck in his nipples and scrotum), while the sight of a dominatrix's ten-inch surgical steel butt-plug will haunt me forever. But this could play at lesbian and gay festivals for sure, since, although all the protagonists are straight, their stories all involve a degree of coming out – especially the genial Altair, a computer programmer with a horse fetish who likes to put on a horsehead and run round a field doing dressage. Quite a lot of people at the packed world premiere loved the music too, by The Tiger Lilies, which sounded to me like Dame Edna Everage with an accordion, but I suppose, as this film proves... well, different strokes for different folks.