Romance and Resistance

Zelary is the story of how this unlikely pair becomes a couple, and how Eliska becomes an organic part of a community she at first disdains. The film is based on an autobiographical novella by Kvíta Legátová, and one senses a degree of romanticized gloss in the speed and alacrity with which Eliska jettisons her city duds, dons a head scarf and snuggles up to the great unwashed. Zelaryis a simple story, baldly told — the movie owes nothing to the knowing absurdism of the Czech New Wave, old or new. But despite the bucolic splendor of this leafy backwater, the movie is far from sentimental, either about the inhabitants of Zelary or the Russian partisans who come to liberate them. Brutal, quarrelsome and ribald, the villagers — and Eliska with them — chug back the booze day and night to shield themselves from poverty, the brutal cycle of the seasons, and frequent incursions by Nazi platoons to hang or shoot those suspected of harboring partisans. These are coarse people, but their solidarity is as instinctive, and as moving, as their smaller betrayals. There’s bravery and cowardice aplenty in Zelary, but, at its finest and most specific, the movie tells you all you need to know about what it means to get by under — and fall prey to — untenable conditions.

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS | Written and directed by JOHN DUIGAN | Produced by MICHAEL COWAN, BERTIL OHLSSON, JONATHAN OLSBERG, JASON PIETTE, ANDRÉ ROULEAU and MAXIME RÉMILLARD | Released by Sony Pictures Classics | At select theaters

ZELARY| Directed by ONDREJ TROJAN | Written by PETR JARCHOVSKY Based on a novella by KVÍTA LEGÁTOVÁ | Produced by TROJAN and HELENA ULDRICHOVÁ | Released by Sony Pictures Classics | At Laemmle Music Hall, Laemmle Playhouse 7, Laemmle Town Center 5