In the middle of the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary stands a massive Brutalist building, the Hotel Thermal, which has housed the Karlovy Vary Int’l Film Festival since the late ’70s (the festival i…
It is here in the Thermal, on one of Europe’s biggest screens, where I have seen movies that rival those debuting at Cannes six weeks earlier — discoveries such as German director Jan-Ole Gerster’s demanding-mother drama “Lara,” winner of two prizes , and Hong Khaou’s “Monsoon,” a subtle, soulful rumination on the many facets of identity, starring “Crazy Rich Asians” heartthrob Henry Golding as a Vietnamese refugee raised abroad, struggling to reconnect with his mother country.
If these gingerbread buildings suggest something enchanted and elitist , then the Thermal is a reminder of another era, back when the Czech Republic found itself under Communist control. It is the 20th-century brain center of a place that seems frozen in time, although this year marks the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which restored democracy to the country, and with it, the chance for Czechs to reconnect with art and cinema from the rest of the world.
When one of these films is really remarkable, Och tends to elevate it to the main competition , making “East of the West” a kind of “Un Certain Regard” of emerging Eastern European filmmakers. Frankly, I find many of these movies quite challenging, as I’m not expert enough in the human rights violations perpetrated by Serbians, Russians, Turks and so on.
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