What’s not to like in a humorous, thoughtful doc that tears down the curtain on how contemporary academia judges talent in the art students it will admit to Prague’s prestigious and exclusive Academy of Fine Arts? Making its world premiere in Karlovy Vary, Art Talent Show (Zkouska umeni) is one of the more left-field titles enlivening the new Proxima competition. Documakers Adéla Komrzy and Tomas Bojar join their own talents and perspectives in an unstructured format that leads to a smudged-edges ending, but in the process they mull over a lot of pertinent questions about the role of art in today’s world, questions that make the audience co-participants in these creative and paradoxical entrance exams. It’s an imaginative doc that festival audiences should find a refreshing change of pace and well worth watching.
Whatever preconceived ideas you might have about the Prague Academy, founded in 1799 by an Imperial Decree of Emperor Franz I, forget them. The Academy’s emphasis on traditional disciplines like painting and sculpture has now been expanded to include film and computer animation, installations and graphic art, and the hopefuls taking the entrance exams – presumably at the end of a rigorous pre-selection process – are an outspoken sampling of a messy, informal, self-confident generation.
The stately building is entered through a long, shadowy lobby casually guarded by a woman behind a glass panel (mostly she functions as a dispenser of keys and a reality check on the normal world.) Upstairs there are spacious studios shot through with light and littered with sculpting debris and works in progress. Exams are underway and everyone in the building is in a state of nervous excitement, creating a sharp edge of tension in the film.
There are amusing characters on both sides of the teacher/student divide, but it’s the Academy’s eccentric staff that captures the viewer’s affection. At first glance, as they joke about the efforts of the young would-be artists, they sound like cynical snobs, but this impression is soon dispelled when they talk to applicants (two teachers interview one student) and try to get their number, creatively speaking. The most eccentric and captivating are Kata and Daria, two women on the mostly all-male staff who stand out not just in their colorful neo boho attire, a provocative compilation of wool and tulle and furry attachments, but for their spontaneous engagement with prospective students on their artistic and sexual outlooks on life. Gender orientation is a top issue for many kids, who have very personal and imaginative solutions to the puzzle, just like their instructors do.
It’s hard not to laugh at some applicants’ ignorance of art history in the oral exams, and they are warned their written tests will be examined by theoreticians and art historians. At another point, Daria ropes a dozen blindfolded kids together and leads them down the street into a park. The exercise recalls acting classes where teachers do everything in their power to break through layers of repression to release the untrammeled creative juices in their students.
Though truth to tell, these applicants don’t seem all that repressed and in some cases appear in need of being stuffed back into the bottle from which they emerged. Still, one admires their awkward attempt to answer the tough, age-old questions about why they want to produce art and what they want to ignite in people, and one hopes the truly talented will find their way into the creative beehive in front of them.
The transition between rooms and exams is very fluid, aided by an ironic, free-wheeling camera that lets the viewer select what to look at among many possibilities. The Academy’s cavernous stone halls are made beautiful by cinematographer Simon Dvoracek’s lighting, which might pick up a solitary janitor emerging from deep shadows like a figure in a painting.
Directors, screenplay: Adéla Komrzy, Tomas Bojar
Producer: Jakub Wagner
Cinematography: Simon Dvoracek
Editing: Hedvika Hansalova
Sound: Vaclav Flegl, Michaela Patrykova, David Titera
Production companies: GPO Platform in association with AVU, Czech TV
Venue: KVIFF Film Festival (Proxima competition)
In Czech
102 minutes
