User Reviews

The abbreviation of Agnieszka Holland's Burning Bush from a Czech TV miniseries to a feature film over three hours long is a compelling experience. The film starts with Prague student Jan Palach burning himself alive in 1969 to protest the Russian suppression of Czechoslovakia. It proceeds to detail the Czechs' support for the brave young nationalist and their government's attempts to smother his effect, for fear of more Russian intrusion.

The tyranny tries to change the dead hero into an unstable dupe. When a government official slanders the dead boy his mother and a student movement leader sue him. Their lawyer's initial reluctance to take on the case proves justifiable when she's haunted by cops, her doctor husband is pressured out if his hospital job and her long-term trusted partner betrays her to save his activist student daughter from persecution.

The film shows what massive pressure a tyrannical state can put on its citizens. A history teacher can be promoted to principal. A nurse can be blackmailed into lying. A journalist can be pressured to refuse to testify. The judge can be threatened with banishment to North Moravia. A cemetery manager can be ordered to remove the hero's grave and incinerate the corpse so no trace of him is left.

Except his name and his story, which 20 years later remained a force behind Czechoslovakia's rip away from Russia.

The film has a happy ending but it's in the epilogue titles, not in the narrative. The plot leaves the tyranny transcendent and justice denied. As the sued politician explains, in politics the truth is what best suits the needs of the people, i.e., the government. So even the taped recording of the politician's slanders doesn't sway the compromised judge from accepting his lies in the hearing.

This is an important film. It speaks to young Czechs and Slovaks who may not know their nations' past. That's a valuable history lesson throughout the world. Perhaps it is especially significant now that Vladimir Putin is rattling the Russian chains again, trying to lure the Ukraine back into the fold and tossing dissidents like Pussy Riot and his political rivals into jail. This is a timely warning. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.

Agnieszka Holland's Burning Bush (2013) is a first rate dramatic production with a solid screenplay, great acting by the whole cast, great direction, and great cinematography.

No "implied message" or esoteric symbolism was necessary here, because the literal, historical storyline had it all up front in spades.

I read the Wiki article about Czech Jan Palach, and this historical docudrama hit all the salient historical points about this brave young patriot's dramatic self sacrifice and its aftermath. Obviously this screenplay stretched quite a bit to fill in the historical details with contrived dramatic scenes, but I myself detected no unreal embellishments or exaggerations relating to the basic historical facts. This film was very realistic and the screenwriter obviously felt that the simple, literal story of Jan Palach was just good enough to sell itself.

Overall, this film is a very engaging and compelling drama about the Czech people's enduring struggles in the face of the invasion of their country by Soviet troops in 1968, and the severe Soviet repression in its aftermath.

This dramatic production was originally a three segment made for TV mini-series that was strung together here as a continuous 4+ hour film. But the drama is so riveting and compelling that the time just flew by.

it is a special film. work of a great director, it represents testimony for a dark moment of history. so, it is a film for soul. with special sense for East European sensitivity. a movie about parts of fight for truth. about heroic gesture as seed for fundamental change of persons and gestures. about courage, sacrifices, price of honesty and need of force for resist in war against evil. it is not exactly an art work because it is not adaptation of novel or result of fiction. it is a form, great, admirable, bitter, salt of remember. and this virtue is fundamental to understand and admire it. the deep impression - it is fruit of duty. after 22 years, Communism risks be only shadow. cold. and ambiguous. the frustrations of many men and woman, the young generation perception, the economic crisis makes it insignificant. Agnieszka Holland film is a warning. a wake - up signal. a protest against forgiveness. maybe, a manifesto. so, it is important to watch it ! believe me !