(Part of the final thesis at the BA –ELTE University, Budapest, filmtheory and fimhistory, the

title was: The tradition of Milos Forman appearing in the Czech filmhistory after the system
change. 15. May, 2010 )

Lilla Puskás
Cesky Sen and the mockumentary in the Czech filmmaking -From the
classic documentary to the ,,mockumentary”

Classic documentary has changed a lot from the 60’s everywhere int he world. After the
events of 1968 a kind of sceptic attitude appeared towards non-fiction movies. 1 The
improoving power of documentaries has been challenged, the viewers started to feel
indecisive the documentaries, they considered them as ,,expressions of ideological plot” 2.
After 1968 new tendencies appeared next to cinema verité. At the turn of the 70’s and 80’s
,,flushing away the borders between fiction and non-fiction filmmaking” came in fashion. 3
With mixing fiction and non-dramatic tools sometimes born expressly provocative movies.

But since the end of the 80’s next to mixing documentary and fiction also the imitation of
reality get more and more popularity between filmmakers and also the audience. Zoltán Gayer
said in 1999, that we should finally admit that the classic documentary is dead”4, since the
beginning of the 80’s the viewers are much more interested int he mockumentaries.
According to Sándor Radnóti the reason for appearing of the mockumentaries is the flushing
away the definite borders between art and reality.5 Gábor Gelencsér says that this new type of
film is ,, fiction in documentary disguise”6: it cheats the viewer with showing nonsenses as
real occurents7.

The mockumentary is self-reflected. ,,This joke attracts attention for the basics of all motion
picture: the occurents are showed on screen seem real not because they are part of the reality
but because of the documentary method”8. It means it is enough to use tools which are
connected for the viewer to the documentary (hand-held camera, decomposed pictures which
remind of sponteniousity, at random filmed pictures, interview situations, commentars9) to
make the viewer to decode the film as a reality and to consider the information within as
real10.

After the system change and the riddance of censorship coding is not certainly necessary any
more, but several filmmaker still uses it. The documentary filmmakers let the viewers to know
carefully, giving by grades more and more information about what they show is not the

1
Charles Musser, Cinema verité and the new documentarism. In: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (szerk.), 1998, The
Oxford History of World Cinema. Budapest: Glória Kiadó, 547-558.
2
Musser, 1998. 552.
3
Musser, 1998, 557.
4
Zoltán Gayer, 1999, Documentum-realism. Filmvilág, 1999/4, 20.
5
Júlia Sipos, 2002, Believe or not. Filmvilág, 2002/5. 21.
6
Gábor Gelencsér, Picture-artifice. Jump Magazin. 1.
7
Gelencsér, Picture-artifice
8
Gelencsér, Picture-artifice
9
Gelencsér, Picture-artifice.
10
Gelencsér, Picture-artifice.
reality. The difference of the signifier and the signified is reflected by warning signs int he
mockumentary.

In the mockumentary the most important process is what in the reciever runs. The viewer
criticizes the decoding process made by himself/herself what leaded him/her to identify the
film as a dockumentary. His/her opinion will several times changed and after a while consider
the movie as a fiction. It means ,,reading” a mockumentary leads the viewer to learn a new
recieving method. That’s the point in this new kind of film: turn the viewer into conscious
reciever. It seems the viewer of today need this attitude. Although the danger of manipulation
of audiovisual tools is known from the birth of the cinema, the genres made int he
consumerism (news, commercials) use these illusion-making tools more often. The
mockumentary overacts and parodies the manipulation mathods of the media, label them and
teach to the viewrs to recognize them also int he future.

The pioneer of the new kind of film was Ropáci (1988), which is often adduced by
filmtheoretics. It uses an extra level next to the typical mockumentary mechanism. The reality
what it affirmed by the movie (in a Czech industry area some new creatures appeard which is
grateful to the mankind for the environmental pollution) includes a strong ironic attitude
wham decoding leads to a new level in the recieving of the movie. A warning of the danger
of the industrial produce is coded in this irony, of course, which is easy to decode to the
viewer. The difficulty of the movie stems from the double screw: after decoding the irony
there is another level to solve: to consider Ropáci as a fiction instead of a dockumentary. It
means the standpoint of the viewer must be changed two times.

Due to the unexpected success of Ropáci (Svěrák laso got an Oscar Prize for it) several other
mockumentaries were made everywhere in Europe. The Czech Dream (Cesky Sen, 2004) and
The Year of the Devil (2005) become emblematic. Both of them mixes the extant
mockumentary form with new methods.

The Czech Dream (Českỳ sen, 2004, directed byVít Klusák- Filip
Remunda)
The opening shots of The Czech dream makes it clear that Vit Klusák and Filip Remunda’s
FAMU- exam film is showed on screen, because the filmmakers introduce themselves in front
of the camera. As time passes by they appear on both sides of the camera so they turn
observer and observed, subject and object in the same time.

The speciality of the film comes from Klusák and Remunda’s act in the beginning: they let
the viewers know that a documentation of a ramp will showed. Their plan is to disperse false
news about the opening of a new mall, employed by the whole manipulating range of
weapons of media and marketing. They manage to do it, there are almost three tousand
customers ont he opening ceremony –but the Czech Dream Hipermarket in the distance is
only a gigantic outdoor poster ( a Potemkin-village, int he strict sense of the word).

During the viewer gets from the narrator extra information related to the protagonists, there is
someting else what he or she forget about: the fact that meantime he or she also turned into a
victim of manipulation. During he or she tries to make an own standpoint laughing at or
feeling sorry for the cheated customers, is totally forgott hat the ,,documentary scenes”
showed to him/her are also partly fiction. Consequently, The Czech Dream thematizes and
employes the manipulative methods at the same time. The confession of the beginning what
seems to be a honest self-uncoverness (and also the tag ,,film reality show” appearing int he
main title) keeps ones busy about also the filmmaker are able to manipulate (not only the
marketing specialists ).
It means there is a double cheating: the filmmakers don’t only make a documentation of the
reaction given to the situation caused by themself but other fiction details are also added to
them, to confirm their own opinion. Jaromír Blažejovský says that directors of The Czech
Dream,,provocate or modell the reality according to their own necessity”11. It In consequence,
the filmmakers themself turn into heroes of the movie.

The Czech Dream starts an interesting play with documentary and fiction elements, which
identification is not possible anymore. For producing the illusion of authenticy it employes
the typical documentary tools: spectacularly used hand-camera, random recorded pictures and
also documentary stock phrases like the strangers who declare finish their message and cover
the lense of the camera by their hand. The self-confessions of the cheated customers reminds
of the socio-reportage in form. Also the view of a microphone in the frame is also an often
used element which is, on one hand, the most typical mistake in a fiction movie. On the other
hand, it emphasize the presence of the crew members which enhances the documentary side.
If two or more camera are in use, on of them is often showed ont he monitor of the other one.
It also happens that the director of photography turns toward a mirror –this is the reflected
case of the self-reflection. The protagonists often watch and speak to the camera (for example
the singing children int he parking place next to the hipermarket and the cheated customers
after the opening ceremony).

Next to the typical documentary elements there are also marks from the classical fiction
movies. These are form and narrative elements (for example montague.sequeance, which is
used in this movie for manipulating the time in the film but the original sound track is
changed by music so it will be similar to a videoclip). The showing of a day int he
hipermarket of the customers reminds the commercials: smiling femilies who uses all the
functions of the mall and there is nice music in the background. Other typical element from a
fiction movie is the point-of-view what is showed in the opening ceremony when customers
run toward the poster of the Cesky Sen. As a close of a scene there is a surprisely long camera
tracking backwards instead of a sharp cut which is here really unusual.

It is worth keeping the eye on the way how this mixed medium completes by the
commercial’s level. The tv-advertisements are the parts of the plot but they appear like non-
diegetic elements. This play with the diegetic-non-diegetic levels repeats three times in the
movie. One advertisement appear int he middle of the opening ceremony to break the
continuity of the celebration ont he most exciting point –like on TV.

This film reflects on the consumerism after system change. There’s a hipermarket-director
who tells a story laughing about his childhood when it was impossible, to get banana in
Czechoslovakia. He compares that memory with the situation of today when the shops are full
of merchandise. The film also shows also the reverse of the medal: on screen appears also
families who prefer shopping in a hipermarket to being int he nature and name malls like
lighting sun after rain. In the movie appear several times the picture of nature next to the
typical pictures of consumerism: but this antithesis reminding to Descartes is overly didactic.
Another scene associated to this appears like the parody of thesis’ of Horace: there is a mother
who is a big fan of hipermarkets speaks about the brevity of life. She says, life is too short, all
moments must be enjoy –of course in beautiful hipermarkets.

11
Jaromír Blažejovský, 2009, Hry, lahve a bobule v české kinematografii posledních let. Film a doba, 2009/1, 5–
9.
Next to this sharp critic about customers appears marketing-criticism, too. The filmmakers
uncover also the marketing-specialists’ tricks12. In the discussion scene there is a member of
the marketing group raises an issue concerning ethic: ,,maybe you filmmakers use to lie to the
people but we commercial-specialist not!”, he says. He repeats it after that also towords the
camera. In another scene there is a member of the commercial group who speaks about his job
and tells his emotions, too: he works to make people happier. He feels like having the power
to change anything int he world. These are the most ironic points of the film, but they are
overly didactic, again.

The Czech Dream gives a sharp critic about society. This critic is said explicitly: ,,Czechs are
easy to manipulate” and ,,people are liars and even thieves”. In contempt of exaggerations like
this, Českỳ Sen had big success in the Czeck Republic, maybe because Czechs already have
the sense of humour for laughing at themself.

12
Blažejovský, 2009.