REVES EN ROSE

By : Dusan Hanak

With : Juraj Nvota, Iva Bittova, Josef Hlinomaz, Marie Motlova
Slovaquie, 1977, 81 min
DVD zone 2, couleur,
10.00 €


ROSE TINTED DREAMS

Directed by : Dusan Hanak

With : Juraj Nvota, Iva Bittova, Josef Hlinomaz, Marie Motlova
Slovakia, 1977, 81 min
DVD zone 2, color

Original title: RUZOVE SNY

Original Slovakian version with French subtitles

Jakub (Juraj Nvota) lives in a rural Slovakian village, and is the boy who delivers the mail to the neighboring gypsy settlement. A good-natured and friendly boy, he falls in love with a gypsy girl, Jolanka (Iva Bittova), and she with him. However, their parents and communities are dead-set against a union between these two, and local toughs beat up the girl. They run away together, and set up housekeeping, only to discover that despite their great love for one another, they are too much a part of their communities to remain together. Jolanka returns to her community, and the next time Jakub sees her is at her wedding.

ROSE TINTED DREAMS is a 1977 Czechoslovak film. Despite its whimsical poetic style, it was the first Central European feature film that put the Romani community at the center stage in a realistic manner. It was also a singular artistic achievement in Slovak and Czechoslovak cinema during the intensely repressive period after the Soviet invasion of 1968 by Dusan Hanak, director of several acclaimed films who maintained the integrity of his vision and style throughout the vagaries of Central European filmmaking in the second half of the 20th century. In a broader sense, ROSE TINTED DREAMS was prescient in Central European cinema because it dealt with a minority group whose plight, not discussed openly then, has since become one of the key issues in several Central European societies. The clash of the communities is depicted with the subtle tender attitude inherited from the Czechoslovak New Wave.

The Slovak director Dusan Hanak was one of Czech cinema's brightest and best talents of the '60s and '70s, but because of censorship this was not manifest until the late '80s. Hanak made an impact on the film world with his auspicious debut 322 (1969). Though banned until 1988, when it was finally released, it earned international acclaim and the Grand Prix award at the Mannheim Film Festival. Hanak's sophomore effort, the documentary IMAGES OF AN ODL WORLD (OBRAZY STAREHO SVETA, completed in 1972), was also not released until 1988 and neither was his 1980 film I LOVE YOU LOVE (JA MILUJEM, TY MILUJES). Hanak's next film, directed in 1976, ROSE TINTED DREAMS (RUZOVE SNY) turned out to be another original work.

DVD release : May the 23rd


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