Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

not horrible nor great

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Zelary is captivating and draws you in from the onset and has many of the hallmarks of good cinema. That is precisely the problem when a prolonged and very difficult scene of violence smacks you upside the head. It's true and well known that sexual violence often accompanies war and it's important to acknowledge that horrific aspect of conflict to understand how innocent people can be spared the wrath of traumatized soldiers. This film seems to be trying to make commentary about this vile part of war through the perspective of the protagonist, but fails in that the sheer length, graphic nature, and intensity of the scene make for agonizing viewing. The depictions of rape are not helpful in making a point nor are they necessary for this film and actually ruin the experience. Not a movie I can recommend.

It's too long. It's too diffuse with too many characters and a ton of sub-plots that don't really add up.Miss Sophisticate is forced to hide in bumpkin land with Mr. Country Bumpkin. OK as far as it goes. She has to marry the fellow to conceal her identity– and all kinds of cliché's and standard scenes follow– the country wedding the village letch assaults her Mr Bumpkin's beautiful doggie the village babushkas instruct Miss Sophisticate in rural cultureMiss Sophisticate saves some of the women during childbirththe village homeless boy saves all the villagers from the bad Russian soldiers...and a few more flashed by when hitting fast-forwardIt was like watching a Disney movie with a few adult scenes. It was all superficial with beautiful scenery tossed in.

There are dozens of redeeming qualities in this excellent Czech film, not the least is a feeling for a living village populated with actual people, certainly a result of dedicated ensemble acting; the film also imparts a sense of the natural beauty too often defiled by man's obsession with power and war (much in the manner of Terence Malick, but less oblique), and the cameos by both old and young and old actors create wonderful funny and touching moments.A woman is forced by circumstances to abandon city sophistication--a lover, smart clothes, new American music--and without much choice must marry a weathered old woodsman she earlier helped save from death...one can surely predict much of the outcome, but not the vivid scenes in the local school, or mill, or the hiding place in the swamp; this is a rich film with very good things to say about adaptation and learning--the ending is certainly problematic, and did not have to be all sweetness and light--but certainly it would have been surprising to delve into alternate solutions other than the director's final choice; otherwise, highly recommended!

As long as there are wars and womenfolk to revere, the feisty spirit of Scarlett O'Hara will never die. The story of a privileged beauty who is transformed by war and sacrifice into a paragon of resilience keeps popping up in film: Catherine Deneuve in Indochine (1992), Sandrine Bonnaire in East-West (1999), Nicole Kidman in last year's Cold Mountain.Zelary is the Czech version, an old-fashioned character-driven domestic epic which was adapted from an novel by Kveta Legatova. Set in the Second World War against the background of the German occupation, the film was selected as the Czech Republic's Oscar nomination last year. A return to directing for Ondrej Trojan (Let's All Sing Around) after more than a decade as a producer, Zelary is a trite but sturdy offering, a showcase for popular young Czech actress Anna Geislerova, as well as the beautiful Moravian countryside, shot in glowing earthy tones.Geislerova plays Eliska, a medical student who has been denied a chance to finish her degree because of the German occupation. She works as a nurse, but is also involved in the resistance movement with her lover, a surgeon named Richard (Ivan Trojan). One night a sawmill worker, Joseph (Hungarian actor Gyorgy Cserhalmi), from a rural community is brought into the hospital badly injured. Eliska provides the blood he needs for a transfusion. Shortly after, the Gestapo uncovers the resistance group that Eliska belongs to and she is forced to escape. Joseph, or Jova for short, agrees to take her back to his rural village of Zelary.Initially the conditions, a dirt floor and no running water, shock her but she has no choice but to stay. She takes on an assumed identity, as Hana, and goes through a marriage ceremony to avoid suspicion from the local villagers.Hana becomes acclimatized to her new housewifely life surprisingly quickly as she discovers, as women so often do in romance novels, that a hulking, taciturn man can meet nearly all her needs. Jova proves himself both a font of compassion and pillar of strength, providing Hana with a wooden floor and defending her from a rapist before they eventually become lovers.While Hana bonds with her woodcutter, the script provides some welcome additional village texture. There's that Czech cinema staple, the precocious child (Anna Vertelarova) and her pragmatic widowed mother, as well as a bureaucratic school principal and his friend, a compassionate priest. There's also an ancient midwife (Jaroslava Adamova) who teaches Hana folk medicine. The most trenchant subplot concerns the local drunk who beats his wife and son: Their imprisonment serves as a contrast to the caring imprisonment that Hana faces.The German army, lurking in the nearby hills, pops up periodically to add a jolt of suspense. Unfortunately, Zelary doesn't end with the war.Soon the ruthless Germans are replaced by the loutish, drunken, raping soldiers of the Soviet army and Zelary is in for a whole new round of problems. By this point -- well past the two-hour mark -- the endlessly episodic nature of Eliska/Hana's trials begins to provoke fatigue more than sympathy. "Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart," wrote the poet William Butler Yeats. And too much history can make any long-suffering heroine overstay her welcome. Benjamin Miller, Filmbay Editor.