Movie Details
Movie: The Head of the Tribe/Indián (2022)
Director: Tomáš Svoboda
Cast: Karel Roden, Vlado Cerny, Jaroslav Dusek, Vica Kerekes, Tomás Matonoha, Daniel Olbrychski, Oliver Oswald
Genres: Comedy
Release date: 22 September 2022
IMDB Rating: 5.4/10
Language: Czech
Duration: 1h 40m
Trailer
Synopsis
Searching among Czech films for one that deviates from the established pattern of awkward comedies or repetitive relationship dramas is like Waiting for Godot. Long and tedious. And when Godot finally does arrive, it becomes the Indián. Unfortunately, it cannot be written otherwise. The Indian is a shining example of how badly a film can fail. The premise itself sounded quite promising – a rich, arrogant businessman (Karel Roden) begins to suffer illusion, hears strange voices in his head, and with their help finds himself, his wife, daughter, stolen company, dead mother, and many other things. If it wasn’t possible to get more out of it than a nomination for the most useless film of the year, then I don’t know what more a skilled screenwriter would want.
But that will probably be the main problem. The screenplay was written by the director of the film Tomáš Svoboda himself, who thus continued his previous works as an author (Husband for an Hour, Husband for an Hour, Two Brides and One Wedding). Maybe if he had left the writing of the script to someone else, it could have been an interesting film where the title character searches for the meaning of life. This is how a completely incomprehensible mixture of strange scenes arose, in which you sometimes feel ashamed of the authors and makes you think about the meaning of it all. Not perhaps in terms of plot, but who will you benefit from such a film? It is neither a comedy nor a drama. There is no humor in the comedy in the film, and there is nothing dramatic about the drama in The Indian, although Roden tries to push the drama saw quite inappropriately in certain scenes.
The content and creative emptiness of many scenes (breathing exercises, punks at a concert) and the overall straying of the central motif is absurdly incomprehensible, especially considering the very modest footage (94 minutes) and the casting of the main roles by several proven film matadors, led by the believable Karl Roden. As the owner of a pack of several Czech lions, he would probably be able to play the Indian chieftain with ease. Unfortunately, the casting of other roles fell outside of any fertile ground and it is sad, especially in the case of Martin Myšička, whose portrayal of the second associate of Roden’s firm will be among his weakest acting chops ever. However, the script misses even more with the representative of the corporate scoundrel played by Vica Kerekes.
In addition, the story is needlessly fragmented into several sidelines that are not interesting and offer no room for humor or drama or perhaps some lesson in the sense of “it’s disgusting to be a rich businessman if you don’t have a good heart”. They were only supposed to create enough space for the comic drama Karel Roden waging bitter battles with the terrifying voiceover of the White Deer, who for some mysterious reason speaks fluent Czech.
It’s a damn shame because, with a little left or right turn, this could have been a nice movie about a guy who hears voices and does seemingly strange things, which is often nominated for film awards. Thus, it remains to state that the only categories in which the Indián will fight will be the most unnecessary film and the biggest bizarreness of this year’s film year.
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