Desk-based Assasination
Synopsis
Two giants of Czech politics of the past two decades, Václav Havel and Václav Klaus, face off in this film. Current president Klaus is internationally known for his denial of global warming, but he would also like to pass off certain chapters in his own political history as myths. Thus, at the close of the 1990s, concluded the attempt of some of Klaus’s then-closest collaborators to cleanse his party of serious suspicions of corruption. These colleagues were called the “assassinators.” On top of it all, Václav Klaus was in Sarajevo at the time, and thus this event entered into the annals of Czech history with a name that refers to the murder of the Austro-Hungarian successor Ferdinand d’Este: the Sarajevo Assassination. “The fact that it was called that is a result of the peculiar mastery of Václav Klaus. I’d call it linguistic hocus-pocus,” says Václav Havel in the film. The filmmakers put together a paper diorama in which they parodize the mythologized interpretation of the events of the time. They then take this diorama around to the then-top politicians, including Klaus and Havel, and film their immediate reactions, both verbal and physical. Recollections of the historical events are intercut with scenes from the Czech Republic’s paper-modeling championships, whose atmosphere recalls that of Miloš Forman’s 1966 film The Firemen’s Ball. The diorama “Sarajevo Assassination” was awarded third prize in the competition, after the runner-up, “Burning Panelák,” and the first-place winner, “Nudist Beach.”
Photogallery
Poster
