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Director's Statement
Jan Mikolášek was a very famous healer, an unusual medicine man, who was using unorthodox methods of diagnosis and treatment. Those special skills made him not only well-known but also rich. In Czechoslovakia before World War II, he became some kind of institution and even during the German occupation he was able to preserve his status by healing high Nazi officials. He was sure that it would not be different after the war. The communists who took power were also humans. And humans fell sick, felt hopeless and needed a doctor; a special kind of a doctor as well, when others cannot help. But the situation changed when his main Stalinist protector died, and the regime decided to destroy him. He was too different, too rich, and too independent. CHARLATAN tells the story of Mikolášek’s rise and fall. Of his moral fall and of his constant fight with the darkness inside of him. It is the story of the mystery of a man, of the mystery of his special gift, of the prize he was ready to pay for it; the story of the paradox of strength and weakness, of love and hate. To tell this story with an epic scope - dozens of years, three different regimes, two World Wars – but one, that feels, at the same time, extremely intimate, I tried to find a sensual and minimalistic language. Static. Quiet. Spare dialogues. Hidden emotions. Extremely subjective passage of time: years are passing in few minutes, minutes are extended, feel like eternity. I tried to show a human soul without entering into the depth of psychological analysis, express interiority through behavior. The faces of actors, the tension between the characters, their constant efforts to pass through the armours of each other are what drives the story forward; the background, the big history of the 20th century is reflected in their fate. I was fortunate to have a wonderful group of people to make this film: cinematographer Martin Strba, production designer Milan Bycek, editor Pavel Hrdlicka, composer Antoni Komasa Lazarkiewicz, actor Ivan Trojan, all of whom I have worked with previously on the miniseries BURNING BUSH. They are an extremely creative, original, and courageous team, and they had a large part in finding a way to tell this story in a strong, personal way; to find images which I hope will stay with the audience long after the screening.