The Sun in a Net

Infobox_Film
name = The Sun in a Net


writer = Short stories:
Alfonz Bednár
Screenplay:
Alfonz Bednár
starring = Marián Bielik
Jana Beláková
Eliška Nosáľová
Ľubo Roman
director = Štefan Uher
editing = Bedřich Voděrka
producer =
cinematography = Stanislav Szomolányi
music = Ilja Zeljenka
distributor =
released = 15 February 1963
runtime = 90 min
country = SVK
CSK
language = flagicon|Slovakia Slovak
imdb_id = 0176155
budget = |

"The Sun in a Net" ("Slnko v sieti") 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. [ [http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/454/cu2.htm Mohamed El-Assyouti, "The Banality of the Banned." "Al-Ahram Weekly" 4-10 Nov. 1999.] ] "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. [ [http://www.uh.cz/p100/p100/tipy.htm Projekt 100] ]

Plot summary

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 [ [http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/3/slnko-pog.shtml Jasmine Pogue, "Štefan Uher: "The Sun in a Net (Slnko v sieti)" 1963."] ] 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.

Director

Štefan Uher (1930, Prievidza − 1993, Bratislava) graduated from the FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts) [ [http://web.amu.cz/?r_id=610 FAMU] ] 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 [ [http://mapy.zoznam.sk/index.pl?zoom=9&pos_x=-573882&pos_y=-1277770&size=small&lang=sk&sipka=1&name=Bre%E8tanov%E1%2C%20Bratislava Koliba] ] (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, [ [http://www.vsmu.sk VŠMU] ] Bratislava: "The Organ" ("Organ," 1964), [ [http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/3/organ.shtml Peter Konečný, "Štefan Uher: "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.

Screenplay

The screenwriter, Alfonz Bednár (1914, Neporadza − 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, [ [http://mapy.zoznam.sk/index.pl?zoom=9&pos_x=-573882&pos_y=-1277770&size=small&lang=sk&sipka=1&name=Bre%E8tanov%E1%2C%20Bratislava Koliba] ] 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. [ [http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/3/votruba.shtml#cz1945 Martin Votruba, Footnote 19, in: "Historical and Cultural Background of Slovak Filmmaking."] ] 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. [Edward Burnett Tylor, "Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization." London, 1865] Associations with Sol Invictus and other solar myths are possible.

Cast

Uher chose little known actors (Eliška Nosáľová and Andrej Vandlík, both from the SNP Theater [ [http://www.divadlomartin.sk/ Slovenské komorné divadlo (formerly Divadlo SNP)] ] 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.

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. [ [http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/3/macek.shtml Václav Macek, "From Czechoslovak to Slovak and Czech Film."] ] It brought a number of hitherto unacceptable social and political themes: [ [http://maxpages.com/czechcinema/1_Sunshine_in_a_Net Mira and Antonín Liehm, "Sunshine in a Net."] ] 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. [ [http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/3/slnko-gol.shtml Alex Golden, "Štefan Uher: "The Sun in a Net (Slnko v sieti)" 1963."] ]

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. [ [http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/3/votruba.shtml#cz1945 Martin Votruba, "Historical and Cultural Background of Slovak Filmmaking."] ] Some of the film's traits inspired students at the FAMU, [ [http://web.amu.cz/?r_id=610 FAMU] ] who soon followed with a series of films known as the Czechoslovak/Czech New Wave.

References