Protektor (2009)

Director:

Marek Najbrt

Writers:

Robert Geisler (screenplay) and
Benjamin Tucek (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

24 September 2009 (Czech Republic)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A Czech journalist joins a Prague radio station what broadcasts Nazi propaganda in order to protect his Jewish wife...

Plot Keywords:

Nazi | Jewish | Radio | Nazi Propaganda | Locked Up

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Matthias Brandt	...	Radio Director
Jan Budar	...	Colleague
Marek Daniel	...	Emil Vrbata
Cyril Drozda
Tomás Mechácek	...	Petr
Klára Melísková	...	Vera
Martin Mysicka	...	Franta
Leos Noha
Sandra Nováková	...	Krista
Jirí Ornest	...	Fantl
Jana Plodková	...	Hana Vrbatová
Josef Polásek	...	Producer
Jan Rehák
Simon Schwarz	...	Gestapo Officer
Daniel Sidon	...	#176A8
Tomás Zatecka	...	Jindra

Also Known As:

Protector (Europe: English title)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

Czech Republic | Germany

Language:

Czech

Color:

Color

Company:

Negativ

Trivia:

Czech Republic's official submission to 82nd Academy Award's Foreign Language in 2010.

Excellent film

This is a review I posted on another forum.

Let me get the beauty of it out of the way first - it looks astonishing. The colors are fantastic, the highlights are beautiful and the shadows are surprisingly tense and deep. Take a classically beautiful noir film and make it even more beautiful, on better film stock, and add a better DP. Whoa man! However, with the editing, it throws you into many different spirals always wondering what is actually happening to the man, changing which characters you care about more and changing how you think a character is going to act - sending all of your ideas about what could happen next all over the spectrum.

My one complaint about the editing was that sometimes to relate scenes (relating scenes as in the way Tarantino did it with Pulp Fiction by having diegetic music in one scene that spills over into the next scene. It's done very often), the editor would show clips from the next scene in the current scene. Now it's very interesting, because it doesn't give you any idea what's going to happen next, it just adds to the emotion you are supposed to feel during that scene. While it adds a lot to the storytelling, it is noticeable. Like sound design, 99% of the time, good editing should go nearly unnoticed by the viewer. It's not at all that I don't like the editing, I just found it awkward at some points.

I won't even get into the score and music. See the movie! There was also one big problem with the ending - and I won't give any important information away, it's just that there should be no credit music. Once you see it, you'll know exactly what I mean.

Now maybe it won't win Best Foreign Film, but I'll be surprised if it isn't nominated.