The Sun in a Net
Encyclopedia
The Sun in a Net is a 1963 film that became a key film in the development of Slovak
and Czechoslovak
cinema from the mandated Socialist-Realist
filmmaking of the repressive 1950s towards the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave
and socially critical or experimental films of the 1960s marked by a gradual relaxation of communist control. Štefan Uher
’s cinematic idiom is as exquisite and deliberate as any of his European contemporaries, including Michelangelo Antonioni
, Ingmar Bergman
and Chris Marker
. The Sun in a Net received multiple votes in a wide survey of Czech and Slovak film academics and critics in the late 1990s asking them for their lists of the 10 best films in the history of filmmaking in the former Czechoslovakia.
The solar eclipse barely discerned by the main characters through thick clouds at the beginning of the film is echoed by summer and fall images of the sun as they present themselves to all of them at various points in the film through a fisherman's net from his pontoon on the Danube
beyond the city's suburbs, which Fajolo and Peťo have discovered independently and use as a swimming deck, a place to ponder life, or to try to seduce Bela. When, however, Bela brings her mother and brother Milo (Peter Lobotka) to the pontoon after a series of subdued interpersonal crises, the pontoon is on dry land because the water level has dropped, and the film ends with Bela and Milo lying to their mother about what they can see as they did about the visibility of the eclipse during the opening sequences.
Uher chose little known actors (Eliška Nosáľová and Andrej Vandlík, both from the SNP Theater in Martin
) or non-actors, two of whom had to be dubbed – by Michal Dočolomanský, a student of acting and later a star of Slovak cinema
, and by Viliam Polónyi, a professional actor. Only Ľubo Roman, a student of acting at that time, became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician. Jana Beláková from a singer's family had marginal experience from several TV productions and followed her role in The Sun in a Net with a singing career.
(1930, Prievidza
− 1993, Bratislava
) graduated from the FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague
in 1955. Among his fellow students were future directors Martin Hollý Jr.
and Peter Solan
who also began to work at the Koliba film studios (then called the Feature Film Studio and the Short Film Studio) in Bratislava
after graduation. Uher first worked in the short film division. The Sun in a Net was his second feature film. His first one was We from Study Group 9-A (My z deviatej A, 1962) about the life of a group of 15-year-old students and their school. Uher followed The Sun in a Net by two more films with the same author-screenwriter Alfonz Bednár and cameraman − Stanislav Szomolányi, later professor of cinematography at the University of Performing Arts, Bratislava: The Organ (Organ, 1964), and Three Daughters (Tri dcéry, 1967). The original music score in The Sun in a Net is by Ilja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of musique concrète
, who also worked with Uher on We from Study Group 9-A, and went on to work with him on six more films. Uher's and Szomolányi's She Grazed Horses on Concrete
(Pásla kone na betóne, 1982) has remained one of Slovakia's most popular domestic productions through the 2000s.
− 1989, Bratislava
), was already an established writer who published mildly nonconformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. He studied Latin, Slovak, and Czech at universities in Prague
and Bratislava
. He was also familiar with American and British fiction and had translated Ernest Hemingway
, Jack London
, Howard Fast
, and other authors.
Bednár joined the Koliba film studios, Bratislava
, in 1960. His first screenplay was The Sun in a Net. He based it on his three short stories "Fajolo’s Contribution" (Fajolov príspevok), "Pontoon Day" (Pontónový deň), and "Golden Gate" (Zlatá brána). A highly likely source of the central theme was the 95% solar eclipse that occurred in Central Europe
on Feb. 15, 1961. Additional inspiration for the symbolic construction of the storyline may have come from ancient solar myths that have been available in Europe in increasingly numerous publications since at least 1865. A specific myth of the Sun in a net was brought from Polynesia
, more general myths of catching the Sun have been attributed to the pre-Columbian Americas
, some of the published solar myths may date back to Indo-European
prehistory. Associations with Sol Invictus
and other solar myths
are possible.
Besides Štefan Uher’s effort to get past the strict requirements of Socialist Realism
, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in (Western) European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them were traces of Italian neorealism
, the film's low-key style, a hint of fashionable existentialism in the dialogues, and attempts at cinéma-vérité amplified in the beer-drinking scenes in a tavern by the employment of a background soundtrack with taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. That also motivated Uher's choice of unconversant actors or non-actors. Some of the film's traits inspired students at the FAMU, who soon followed with a series of films known as the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave
.
Cinema of Slovakia
The cinema of Slovakia encompasses a range of themes and styles typical of European cinema. Yet there are a certain number of recurring themes that are visible in the majority of the important works. These include rural settings, folk traditions, and carnival...
and Czechoslovak
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
cinema from the mandated Socialist-Realist
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
filmmaking of the repressive 1950s towards the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave
Czechoslovak New Wave
The Czechoslovak New Wave is a term used for the early films of 1960s Czech directors Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papoušek, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Jaromil Jireš, Vojtěch Jasný, Evald Schorm and Slovak directors Juraj Herz, Juraj Jakubisko, Štefan Uher, Ján Kádár, Elo...
and socially critical or experimental films of the 1960s marked by a gradual relaxation of communist control. Štefan Uher
Štefan Uher
Štefan Uher was a Slovak film director, one of the founders of the "Czechoslovak New Wave"....
’s cinematic idiom is as exquisite and deliberate as any of his European contemporaries, including Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
, Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
and Chris Marker
Chris Marker
Chris Marker is a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La jetée , A Grin Without a Cat , Sans Soleil and AK , an essay film on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa...
. The Sun in a Net received multiple votes in a wide survey of Czech and Slovak film academics and critics in the late 1990s asking them for their lists of the 10 best films in the history of filmmaking in the former Czechoslovakia.
Plot
Oldrich "Fajolo" Fajták (Marián Bielik), a student who directs quasi-existentialist verbal abuse at his girlfriend Bela Blažejová (Jana Beláková), takes off to a formally-volunteer summer work camp at a farm, actually mandated by the authorities, which inspires both him and Bela to start a relationship with someone else. A parallel story peels layers off Bela's permanently tense home life marked by her blind mother's (Eliška Nosáľová) studied helplessness, and her father's (Andrej Vandlík) revealed infidelity and past break with his father (Adam Jančo) who happens to live in the village where Fajolo is finding some consolation in the arms of a fellow student-volunteer Jana (Oľga Šalagová). As Fajolo begins to pry into Bela's grandfather's secrets, she, in turn, allows her new boyfriend Peťo (Ľubo Roman) to read and deride Fajolo's discursive and indirectly remorseful letters from the farm.The solar eclipse barely discerned by the main characters through thick clouds at the beginning of the film is echoed by summer and fall images of the sun as they present themselves to all of them at various points in the film through a fisherman's net from his pontoon on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
beyond the city's suburbs, which Fajolo and Peťo have discovered independently and use as a swimming deck, a place to ponder life, or to try to seduce Bela. When, however, Bela brings her mother and brother Milo (Peter Lobotka) to the pontoon after a series of subdued interpersonal crises, the pontoon is on dry land because the water level has dropped, and the film ends with Bela and Milo lying to their mother about what they can see as they did about the visibility of the eclipse during the opening sequences.
Cast
- Marián Bielik as Oldrich "Fajolo" Fajták
- Michal Dočolomanský (b. 1942) as Oldrich "Fajolo" Fajták (voice)
- Jana Beláková as Bela Blažejová
- Eliška Nosáľová as Mother, Stanislava "Stanka" Blažejová
- Andrej Vandlík (1925-1985) as Father, Ján "Jano" Blažej
- Peter Lobotka as Son/Brother Milo Blažej
- Adam Jančo as Farm Stacker Blažej, father/grandfather
- Pavol Chrobák as Supervisor Mechanic Blažej
- Viliam Polónyi (b. 1928) as Supervisor Mechanic Blažej (voice)
- Ľubo Roman (b. 1944) as Peťo
- Oľga Šalagová as Jana
Uher chose little known actors (Eliška Nosáľová and Andrej Vandlík, both from the SNP Theater in Martin
Martin, Slovakia
Martin is a city in northern Slovakia, situated on the Turiec river, between the Malá Fatra and Veľká Fatra mountains, near the city of Žilina. The population numbers approximately 58,000, which makes it the eighth largest city in Slovakia...
) or non-actors, two of whom had to be dubbed – by Michal Dočolomanský, a student of acting and later a star of Slovak cinema
Cinema of Slovakia
The cinema of Slovakia encompasses a range of themes and styles typical of European cinema. Yet there are a certain number of recurring themes that are visible in the majority of the important works. These include rural settings, folk traditions, and carnival...
, and by Viliam Polónyi, a professional actor. Only Ľubo Roman, a student of acting at that time, became a successful actor, theater administrator, and ultimately a politician. Jana Beláková from a singer's family had marginal experience from several TV productions and followed her role in The Sun in a Net with a singing career.
Director
Štefan UherŠtefan Uher
Štefan Uher was a Slovak film director, one of the founders of the "Czechoslovak New Wave"....
(1930, Prievidza
Prievidza
Prievidza is a city in the central-western Slovakia. With 51,200 inhabitants it is one of the biggest municipalities in the Trenčín Region.-Features:...
− 1993, Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
) graduated from the FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
in 1955. Among his fellow students were future directors Martin Hollý Jr.
Cinema of Slovakia
The cinema of Slovakia encompasses a range of themes and styles typical of European cinema. Yet there are a certain number of recurring themes that are visible in the majority of the important works. These include rural settings, folk traditions, and carnival...
and Peter Solan
Cinema of Slovakia
The cinema of Slovakia encompasses a range of themes and styles typical of European cinema. Yet there are a certain number of recurring themes that are visible in the majority of the important works. These include rural settings, folk traditions, and carnival...
who also began to work at the Koliba film studios (then called the Feature Film Studio and the Short Film Studio) in Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
after graduation. Uher first worked in the short film division. The Sun in a Net was his second feature film. His first one was We from Study Group 9-A (My z deviatej A, 1962) about the life of a group of 15-year-old students and their school. Uher followed The Sun in a Net by two more films with the same author-screenwriter Alfonz Bednár and cameraman − Stanislav Szomolányi, later professor of cinematography at the University of Performing Arts, Bratislava: The Organ (Organ, 1964), and Three Daughters (Tri dcéry, 1967). The original music score in The Sun in a Net is by Ilja Zeljenka, an avant-garde composer of musique concrète
Musique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
, who also worked with Uher on We from Study Group 9-A, and went on to work with him on six more films. Uher's and Szomolányi's She Grazed Horses on Concrete
She Grazed Horses on Concrete
She Grazed Horses on Concrete is a film which lays out serious topics that include a woman's capacity to hold her own in society, sexual mores, and abortion, and balances them with comedy and irony in proportions that instantly made it one of the biggest domestic blockbusters in Slovak cinema.A...
(Pásla kone na betóne, 1982) has remained one of Slovakia's most popular domestic productions through the 2000s.
Screenplay
The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednár (1914, NeporadzaNeporadza, Trencín District
Neporadza is a village and municipality in Trenčín District in the Trenčín Region of north-western Slovakia.-Geography:The municipality lies at an altitude of 290 metres and covers an area of 14.211 km². It has a population of about 773 people....
− 1989, Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
), was already an established writer who published mildly nonconformist fiction somewhat earlier than most other authors. He studied Latin, Slovak, and Czech at universities in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
. He was also familiar with American and British fiction and had translated Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
, Howard Fast
Howard Fast
Howard Melvin Fast was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.-Early life:Fast was born in New York City...
, and other authors.
Bednár joined the Koliba film studios, Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
, in 1960. His first screenplay was The Sun in a Net. He based it on his three short stories "Fajolo’s Contribution" (Fajolov príspevok), "Pontoon Day" (Pontónový deň), and "Golden Gate" (Zlatá brána). A highly likely source of the central theme was the 95% solar eclipse that occurred in Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
on Feb. 15, 1961. Additional inspiration for the symbolic construction of the storyline may have come from ancient solar myths that have been available in Europe in increasingly numerous publications since at least 1865. A specific myth of the Sun in a net was brought from Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
, more general myths of catching the Sun have been attributed to the pre-Columbian Americas
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, some of the published solar myths may date back to Indo-European
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
prehistory. Associations with Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus
Sol Invictus was the official sun god of the later Roman empire. In 274 Aurelian made it an official cult alongside the traditional Roman cults. Scholars disagree whether the new deity was a refoundation of the ancient Latin cult of Sol, a revival of the cult of Elagabalus or completely new...
and other solar myths
Solar deity
A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms...
are possible.
Significance
The early 1960s saw some relaxation of communism in Czechoslovakia. The Sun in a Net was the first film that took advantage of this new atmosphere. It brought a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes: distant — perhaps uncaring — parents, a philandering husband, teenagers changing partners, an attempt at suicide, a poorly run collectivized farm, the fact that the students disdained the summer "voluntary work" camps. None of these issues are resolved in a "positive" manner. The core storyline — the ups and downs in the relationship of two teenagers — the realism and novelty of its urban setting, and the hints at some social and political taboos were not lost on the audience, and cannot have been lost on the censors. The Sun in a Net pushed the envelope and showed artists, and the audience at large, what the authorities could now be pressed to permit.Besides Štefan Uher’s effort to get past the strict requirements of Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
, the director was inspired by some of the trends current in (Western) European cinema and culture in the 1950s. Among them were traces of Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
, the film's low-key style, a hint of fashionable existentialism in the dialogues, and attempts at cinéma-vérité amplified in the beer-drinking scenes in a tavern by the employment of a background soundtrack with taped unscripted conversations of real villagers. That also motivated Uher's choice of unconversant actors or non-actors. Some of the film's traits inspired students at the FAMU, who soon followed with a series of films known as the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave
Czechoslovak New Wave
The Czechoslovak New Wave is a term used for the early films of 1960s Czech directors Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jaroslav Papoušek, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, Jaromil Jireš, Vojtěch Jasný, Evald Schorm and Slovak directors Juraj Herz, Juraj Jakubisko, Štefan Uher, Ján Kádár, Elo...
.