According to actress Anna Geislerová, who portrayed her in the new film Havel, Václav Havel’s wife Olga was a generous, modest and free-spirited woman. “She was able to adapt her life to herself. Every such person is admirable to me,” Geislerová said today in Uherské Hradiště at a discussion about the film Havel, which was part of the Summer Film School.
The film Havel by director Slávek Horák focuses on the time before the playwright and dissident Václav Havel became the last Czechoslovak and the first Czech president. The title role in the film is played by Viktor Dvořák and his first wife Olga by actress Geislerová. It has been in cinemas since July 23. According to the creators, the film is about Havel’s struggle for truth, persecution and imprisonment, but also love relationships and his own doubts.
According to Geisler, Olga was one of the types of mysterious women for whom it is not easy to find out what they really think, even in close contact. Geisler did not know Olga personally, but during her one-year preparation for the film, she thoroughly studied her life. “I admire her for her generosity and modesty, which remained even after she became the first lady,” said the actress.
Geisler thinks that Olga was able to maintain her dignity and generosity in difficult life situations, even in her relationship with Václav Havel. “People are still asking me about the (love) triangle and how she could stand it. But it was a couple and it was two people who lived together and they just had these things arranged. That’s how they lived and she had her stories again. “She was generous to herself and to her partner. She was terribly free for me. Free in that she was herself at all costs, she didn’t subject it to anything and she didn’t let anything and anyone take it,” Geisler said.
According to her, the approach of filmmakers and actors is different when a film is being made about a real character who lived until recently and is well remembered by people. Such was the shooting of the film Havel. “It’s necessary to be more responsible and you can’t think of it all. Only now, when people often ask me how I did it, I realize in retrospect that maybe I should have had more respect,” Geisler said.
The actress was carefully preparing for the role of Olga a year before the opening flap. “I wanted to upgrade my knowledge of Václav Havel, and this includes Olga,” said Geislerová, who, together with Viktor Dvořák and the director, gradually immersed herself in the individual characters and relationships between them.
Havel is at the forefront of weekend cinema attendance for two weeks. In the two weeks to the end of last week, the film attracted over 64,000 viewers and its sales are approaching the level of ten million crowns.
The film was presented at the LFŠ in the Czech and Slovak News section, which presents, for example, Václav Marhoul’s Painted Birds. The show will offer about 100 films this year, last year it was doubled. So far, approximately 2,500 visitors have been accredited to the LFŠ, last year there were about 5,400. This year, however, the show is taking place at a different date due to the coronavirus pandemic, and only accredited visitors can attend the event.
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