REVIEW: The charlatan could have trusted more. But Ivan Trojan played a really strong character Culture

Theme for the film Charlatan is the work of Martin Šulc, a piglet of the healer Jan Mikolášek. This was a real phenomenon in its time. His surprisingly reliable diagnostic method consisted of examining urine vials and using herbal mixtures to treat patients often successfully. He worked under the Nazi and Communist regimes, and in both cases he met with both persecution and the favor of the peaks of power who used his abilities. His authentic attempt to help people contrasted with his sometimes clumsy demeanor and did not match the romantic image of a poor herbalist.

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On the contrary, he relied on his property and provoked with his lifestyle in the times of communist egalitarianism. At the same time, he generously financed various public benefit projects. His career was cut short by the death of President Antonín Zápotocký, who held a protective hand over him. The death of Zápotocký begins with the film by Agnieszka Hollandová, whose screenplay was written by Marek Epstein according to Šulc’s theme. Undoubtedly, many of the well-known features of Mikolášek’s personality got into the film, and many were also added under a legitimate author’s license. For obvious reasons, Mikolášek never openly confessed to his homosexuality, but Šarlatán is largely built as a gay romance about the relationship between Mikolášek and his assistant.

In addition to documented facts, the film also works with a kind of deeply dark side of the healer’s personality, with whom Mikolášek fights with his charity. In this respect, it is still a stimulating interpretation that goes within the bounds of historical fidelity. On the contrary, the creators decided to abandon reality in the case of Mikolášek’s contrived process, which followed the healer’s fall into disfavor. The trial actually took place and Mikolášek was sentenced to three years (and six years after his appeal), but it was for the alleged concealment of income. For the purposes of the film, such bullying was found to be too dull, so Mikolášek is accused of sending a mixture of herbs containing strychnine to two Ostrava communist officials, who killed them.

The arrested Jan Mikolášek (Ivan Trojan) thus encounters an arrogant investigator (Miroslav Hanuš) in the present level of narrative. He is assisted in his defense by a young lawyer Zlatohlávek (Jiří Černý), who is assigned ex officio, but is surprised by a sincere effort to stand up for his client and seek the truth. Interviews with the investigator are also an opportunity to return the story in numerous retrospectives to Mikolášek’s past, from the torturous experience of war to the awakening of healing abilities, learning from herbalist Mülbacherová (Jaroslava Pokorná), healing crowds of hopeful unfortunates, intricate test of diagnostic abilities only after a fateful acquaintance with his assistant František (Juraj Loj), with whom Mikolášek will establish a strong relationship, but also not free of demons and failure.

Ivan Trojan created a really strong, hard-to-penetrate, yet credible figure of a man endowed with extraordinary talents and diligence, the ability to love and the desire to help, who is also an egoist and conformist. The hard and sensitive nature of Mikolášek in adulthood helps to understand his performance at a time when his personality was being formed: this is the work for Josef Trojan, who convincingly shows the hero in a youthfully excited state. Martin Štrba’s camera also plays a large part in the experience from Šarlatán – partly because he turned the viewing of urine bottles, which viewers see a lot, into a fascinating visual adventure.

The main lessons from Charlatana it sounds strong and convincing: it is foolish to see idols in exceptional people, but it is equally unjust to judge anyone by slander, because dark and bright sides exist in every human being. However, to the doubts and questions that the viewer has to ask about this film (and not necessarily have to find an answer to it immediately), there are unnecessarily added some others, caused by the effort for greater effect. The plot of state power presented by the scenario is very controversial – either because in 1958 the toughest totalitarianism allowed it and absolute arbitrariness, despite clear evidence, would hardly be possible in such a sharpened form, or because Jan Mikolášek (or as the film presents it) was not such a major enemy to the regime that it used such exorbitant means to liquidate it. In fact, much more mundane tools were enough for him, but even in that case it was a matter of destroying a person and disrupting his life. The charlatan could have trusted more and shown the destructive filth in its bureaucratic banality.

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