Charlatan - Il potere dell'erborista

Agnieszka Holland is active as a (female) director since halfway the 70's and has produced a very diverse oeuvre. Because there is no real masterpiece in the oeuvre I think she hasn't got the attention she deserves.

Also "Charlatan" is no masterpiece, but it is a very good movie nevertheless. The cinematography is at times very beautiful, but that is not the real attraction of the movie. The real attraction of the movie is that it has a very compex main character in a very complex society, but the movie does not try to explan everything. It is up to the spectator to think about a lot of quenstions after the movie has finished. Benath some of the questions I had after viewing the movie.

The film is a biopic about Jan Mikolasek (1889 - 1973, played by Ivan Trajon (at older age) and his son Josef Trojan (at younger age)). Jan Mikolasek diagnosis people by looking at a bottle of their urine and treats them with extracts of herbs. When later in the film Mikolasek also turns out to be a clairvoyant, the term "charlatan" seems more then justified. Despite its title the film hoewever does not give a clear answer to this question. There are some indications about questianable merchandising (empty bottles to urinate in) around the practice of Mikolasek but on average he is portrayed as a man driven to help his patients and not as a charlatan.

Mikolasek is prosecuted by the communist Czech government. The film is unclear about the motives of the government. The prosecutor calls Mikolasek mockingly a urine oracle, but as we saw before this was in all probability not the case.

The film makes clear that the prosecution is only possible after some former patients of Mikolasek are no longer on positions of power. That is however only about eliminating an obstacle and does not give a cleu about the motives behind the prosecution. Was it the homosexuality of Mikolasek? At one point in the film is remarked that this is against the law, but (again) the film does not provide definite answers.

As dedicated Mitosalek is to his patients, so selfish and blunt he sometimes is to his loved ones. Especially against his assistent and lover Frantisek Palko (Juraj Loj) he is two times real cruel and villainous. Flashbacks to his past agian provide some clues about this inconsistency in his peronality but not the full answer.

One thing is in my opinion not entirely logic. The film is told in flash backs originating from the interrogation during the proces. At other points in the film however, the impression is created that the proces is just a show proces with conclusions already drawn. But why having serious interrogations in a show proces?