Tobruk

Das ambitionierte und finanziell sicher kostspielige Projekt von Václav Marhoul hat gemischte Gefühle in mir hinterlassen. Ich hätte wohl einen anderen Tag wählen sollen, um den Film anzuschauen, als nach einer durchreisten und somit durchwachten Nacht, weil mich einige lange Einstellungen, bei denen nichts passiert, einschläferten. Nicht gefallen hat mir Marhouls Entscheidung, bis auf Novotný und Hádek unbekannte Schauspieler einzusetzen, ich persönlich konnte mich in den Figuren nicht orientieren. Trotzdem bin ich ein Fan von Marhoul, ganz sicher ist es für die tschechische Filmografie gut, wenn sie vom Genre her breit gefächert ist. (15.09.2008)

I understand why Tobruk was filmed and who it is mainly for. What I don't understand anymore is how. I don't mean the formal aspect, which fits the "European film" label like a glove, unlike films such as Bathory, which cost 3 times more and still looks like a TV movie. Why the hell didn't Marhoul have someone more skilled write the script. Why isn't the film twenty minutes longer and why can’t we learn more about the characters? Where do the two rookies find the breakthrough in their behavior? Why isn't the swearing English medic looking for the two people missing from the transport? And I have so many more questions. When the Czechs finally make something that looks worldly, it’s also filled with a pile of amateur mistakes just to tell the story as fast as possible. It deserves a slap to the face. (27.05.2009)

It’s as if a war correspondent visited these regular Czechoslovak guys in Tobruk and reported a couple of really interesting fragments of their day-to-day “boredom in the desert" on the evening news, setting off again on his dusty way afterward. It certainly isn’t a war story with cliché upon cliché, where they read out love letters like at a poetry club meeting, where they also make July 4th style stirring speeches. In this movie, we get a lot of silence and gazing into the distance over the stony desert. But this logically results in the problem of fragmentation and total lack of story. On the other hand, it works excellently on a completely other level. On an intimate, internal level - call it what you want. But the main thing is that it works. And it could have ended up looking much cheaper, despite the passable visuals and fantastic sound. But that wouldn’t have changed anything on the quality of Tobruk. P.S.: It’s funny that one of the sponsors of this movie was the Czech forestry corporation, when this movie takes place in sand dune surroundings. (11.09.2008)

Movies age and some genres age faster. This is also the case with war movies, where older classics and films that were once groundbreaking now unintentionally seem funny with their naivety, pathos, and outdated techniques that do not correspond to the historical reality. Tobruk leaves these starry films far behind because Marhoul is a long-time fan of war history and the whole world of the military, and he made great efforts to make his film look credible from this perspective. Unfortunately, the film has two levels. The first one shows exceptional care and effort to make an extraordinary film and pay tribute to Czechoslovak soldiers in North Africa. However, this level clashes with the second one represented by limited directorial experience and abilities, together with a limited budget. Grand war blockbusters are the domain of Hollywood cinema, and if a European producer wants to make one, they must resort to multiple co-productions. You can try to disguise this, but the low budget will inevitably show. Unless you want to make an intimate film about a local war episode with a group of soldiers. However, the main drawback of the film lies in the screenplay, which lacks a strong story because it is episodically fragmented. Additionally, the characters are not fully developed, only hinted at or at best outlined, so the viewer cannot fully identify with them or, adversely, fully hate them. Marhoul simply does not know how to work with the audience's emotions. Compare Tobruk with Death is Called Engelchen (note the difference in the prisoner's execution in this film and Tobruk) or with Riders in the Sky. However, Tobruk is obviously an ambitious film that was supposed to make a mark at a festival, and in the end, it even won a few Czech Lion awards. It is in such films that you can see the provinciality of contemporary Czech cinema. The bottom looks the same everywhere, but you can recognize the quality of each national cinema by the films that strive to be at the top. With all due respect to Tobruk, this is just an average film, although a better average. Overall impression: 60%. (22.04.2012)

An appealing effort in a battle that was lost before it even began. To make a functional, expressive, or appropriate-looking war story in the Czech setting can only succeed with a one-of-a-kind project like Dark Blue World. That's why I can't help but shake my head in wonder that Václav Marhoul took on such a hopeless task with a script that is rather unfriendly to the audience. Still, I remain satisfied. The war, friendship, and suffocatingly hopeless storyline work brilliantly, the aimless wandering without a plot, which often undermines tension in domestic cinematography, is not a concern in this delicate environment. So what's the catch? It lies in the fact that credibility is sometimes presented through unnecessarily incomprehensible moments like a chase with a rooster or episodes with a prostitute. In the end, I'm giving it 70%, enhanced by the impression of an unexpected surprise. (26.10.2009)