Milena
Directed by Vera Belmont
Screenplay and dialogue by Vera Belmont in collaboration with Marie Genevieve Ripeau, Guy Konopicky, Dan Frank and Lou Garfinkle
Starring Valerie Kaprisky, Stacy Keach, Gudrun Langrebe, Peter Gallagher and Nick Mancuso
Screening from December 12 at Sydney's Greater Union and Academy Twin Cinemas as part of the 1992 French Film Festival
Reviewed by Sally Low
A film based on the true story of Milena Jsenska could hardly fail.
Born into a wealthy family in Prague early this century, Milena (Valerie Kaprisky), rebels against her domineering father (Stacy Keach) who wants her to study medicine and become the first female surgeon in Prague.
Enraged by her affair with journalist Ernst Polak (Peter Gallagher), he has her committed to a mental asylum. Polak helps Milena escape and the two elope to Vienna but their marriage crumbles as the rise of anti-Semitism ruins his career.
Milena returns to Prague, works as a journalist and meets Franz Kafka (Philip Anglim) some of whose works she has translated. They begin an intense but troubled relationship which is to be the most important of her life.
To fill the void left by Kafka's death she marries Jaromir (Nick Mancuso), a Communist architect. Although they cannot agree politicaly — Milenna is ejected from a party meeting after she questions Jaromir's declaration that the German working class is about to rise up and defeat Hitler — it is a relatively happy marriage and Milenna's daughter Honza is born.
When Jaromir is given tickets to Moscow and the chance to realise his dream of building the ideal worker's housing, Milena and Honza stay behind. There are, she says, too many strange stories and too many people who have never returned.
As fascism and anti-Semitism grow stronger in Czechoslovakia, Milena's associations with Jews and Communists cause her to be blacklisted as a journalist. The Communist Party paper Rude Pravo cannot cope with her irreverence.
She sinks into despair and a period of drug addiction which ends only after Hitler's armies have entered Prague. After helping many Jews, including Max Brod who carries Kafka's manuscripts with him, to escape across the Polish border, Milena Jsenska is captured by the Gestapo. She died in Ravensbruck concentration camp on May 17, 1944.
This is a beautiful film. Vera Belmont not only pays tribute to Milena but also to Prague's scenery and its rich cultural life between the wars. We are treated to glimpses of a literary elite that included figures such as Brod, Jaroslav Hasek and of course Kafka. As far as it is dealt with, the political and historical background are accurate. But because it attempts to cover so much, the film is at times a little disjointed and stilted. Milena's character is not well developed and some of the acting, for example that of Peter Gallagher as Polak, seems false. Nevertheless, for the story, the history and its beauty, it's a film to be recommended.
For more information about Milena and other features of the French Film Festival which begins December 8, contact the Greater Union, Academy Twin or Ronin films on (02) 281 2455.