Jon The Blogcentric

“You’ve only got this time in your life to be young and stupid, so go for it!”

-my advise to young people

Winter Flies is the third of three entries in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars I saw at the VIFF. This Czech film is one that will surprise you.

The film starts on a winter’s day with a young boy carrying what appears to be a gun and wearing an outfit that makes him look like a bear. Turns out it’s a pellet gun. The boy’s name is Hedus. Soon an Audi arrives. It’s driven by a teenage boy with a shaved head named Mara. Despite the meeting together starting on a bad note, Mara decides to invite Hedus along.

The film then flashes to a police office. Mara has just been arrested for grand theft auto of that Audi. The female police officer, Officer Freiwaldova, is not impressed with Mara. He’s 15 and has a pregnant girlfriend back home, or at least he claims so. The film goes frequently from their ‘road trip’ to Mara being interrogated. They interrogate him about the trip and as well about the pink female sweater they found in the car.

Flashing back to the trip, Hedus drams of joining the French legion and asks Mara advise over girls. Mara acts like he knows it all, but soon they spot a girl on the road. She’s an older girl named Bara and looks like she’s abused. However she accepts a ride from the two as they don’t appear too threatening. During the trip, they stop at a park near a small lake. Hedus is having fun being up a tree and talking to Mara. Meanwhile a man is trying to sell them a dog. The boy laugh it off, only for the laughter to end when it appears the man is trying to drown the dog. They go to the rescue of the dog and Hedus even fires his pellet gun at the man. The dog is now theirs.

Back at the police office, Freiwaldova tries to get Mara to map out the trip, but he refuses and even hits on the Officer. Freiwaldova is frustrated with dealing with Mara. This is a long process as the Officer keeps on asking questions as she’s smoking cigarettes she puts in an ashtray with a fly in it. Continuing on the trip, the three come to a man who’s willing to give the three shelter for the night. They think it’s okay, and Bara sees no problem as long as she can protect herself. However things go wrong when they notice the man is about to rape her. That’s when Hedus and Mara act in and start acting violently to the man. They then take off again. However it’s soon where Hedus tries coming onto Bara. It’s there where she demands to be let out. So that’s all that’s left in the trip. The two boys, the dog and Bara’s pink perfume-scented sweater for them to masturbate over.

Overnight doesn’t seem to stop them. They learn they’re in a self-driving Audi as it can drive itself even while Mara is asleep at the wheel! In the morning, Mara learns they’re close to the town where his grandfather lives. However when they get to his house, Mara find his grandfather on the floor suffering from a heart attack. Mara, more concerned for anyone, gets his grandfather to a nearby hospital. Flashing back to the interrogation scenes, Freiwaldova is hoping to use this incident to find out more information about Mara. She calls the hospital to find out the name and tells Mara one of the men died last night. That makes Mara cry and confess information. It’s right after that where she admits she lied and says she did it to get any info out of him. No doubt Mara is pissed off.

Reflecting back to the trip, the Audi does eventually find itself caught by police in a small Czech town. It’s only a matter of time that the car is stopped and Mara is arrested. Hedus was nowhere to be seen. It’s the end of the road for Mara with him being at the police office, or is it? Hedus is outside the police office and the Audi is close outside. Hedus also found a ladder that reaches up to the office Mara is interrogated in. Hedus is sly enough to fire his pellet gun on all the police vehicles. That’s enough to distract all the officers and leave Mara alone in the office. Alone except for the fly in the ashtray coming back to life. Then Hedus climbs up the ladder and tries to get Hedus to escape. They’re back on the road again!

We should really hate those two jerks. One is stupid with an overactive imagination. The other is an irresponsible rebel with complete disrespect to just about everyone, including the police. We should also hate the two at the very end. However one critic made a point that I agreed with. They said the two make the rebellion and the irresponsibilities of adolescence look charming and even funny. I have to agree because that is the magic of art. It can take characters that we would look down on in the real world and make them look likable and even charming. We see that here as Mara does bring out the charm of the anti-authority jerk we really should hate. Hedus also brings out the charm of the weird boy with an over-the-top wild imagination. That was what the story is about in a nutshell: two adolescent misfits on a wild ride.

The film not only brings out the characters’ charms but may also remind us of our own adolescent ‘glory days.’ There are many scenes that were funny and hilarious, but would look terrible or disgusting in real life. Like when Mara is being a jerk to the officer, or when the two start hitting on Bara right after she was about to be raped the night before, or even when the two masturbate over Bara’s perfume-scented sweater. It’s a guilty pleasure to laugh at moments of stupidity like that because they will remind us of us and our own stupidities. I’m sure you remember the days you used to flip the tweeter to whoever you wanted! The film has other humorous moments as well like when the fly in the cigarette ashes appears to come back to life or when the two boys are able to sleep in the self-driving Audi with no problem. The latter should also be symbolic as it appears the two boys appear to be on a trip to nowhere. Maybe they don’t really care if they don’t have a destination, as long as they’re away. That’s another joy of being young: venturing into the unknown.

One thing to take note is that even though the two are characters of teens we should hate, Mara does show some vulnerability. One case is when a man is about to drown a dog. Mara gets Hedus to fire his pellet gun at the man while Mara goes to rescue the dog. Also that scene where Mara and Hedus are seen helping their grandfather who is having a heart attack. It sends you the message that Mara does have a heart, despite his rebellion and carelessness. Also that scene where Mara is crying when he thinks his grandfather has died shows he still has a child-like innocence in him that comes out when you least expect it. Those are scenes that bring out Mara’s redeeming qualities and make you actually like him and feel for him. He’s not the heartless jerk we’re first led to believe he is.

We should give a lot of respect to Slovenian-born director Olmo Omerzu and Petr Pycha. Who would’ve thought this was Pycha’s first ever feature-length script? Pycha’s story and Omerzu’s direction help make this film and its characters entertaining and charming in ways you least expect it. Tomas Mrvik was very good at the young protagonist Mara. This is Mrvik’s first film but he succeeds in making Mara hatable, but charming at the same time. Also acting for the first time is Jan Frantisek Uher. He did the idiocy of Hedus very well and surprised us all in showing Hedus is trickier than we thought. Lenka Vlasakova was excellent as Officer Freiwaldova. She did an excellent job in delivering the more dramatic parts and made them work for the film.

Winter Flies is the Czech Republic’s entry for this year’s Academy Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film was nominated for the Crystal Globe for Best Film at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival where Omerzu won Best Director. The film is also quite remarkable for including a lot of elements in a story of teenagers most teen films, especially those made by the Hollywood system, wouldn’t include. Stealing an Audi, allowing it to self-drive while asleep at the wheel, teen boys talking about getting ‘pussy,’ the two masturbating and climaxing in their pants, I doubt Hollywood would dare to make a teen-themed film with scenes like those!

Winter Flies is a humorous story. However the funniest thing about the film is that it makes likable characters out of two we should really hate!