Ostrochovský’s delicate yet powerful portrait of youthful rebellion vs social and religious conformity is assured, as is the striking cinematography of Juraj Chlpik. Servants is showing now on Curzon Home Cinema.
The year is 1980, and the Czechoslovakian communist regime is slowly tightening its grip on religious institutions, with the secret police keen to rid the country of the priests who harbour underground campaigners for freedom. The state’s unchecked power is clear to see as a car drives slowly to a deserted stretch of road, where two men unceremoniously dump the body of a priest before making it look as if he has been run over. His crime against the state is unknown as the rain pours, and the tarmac becomes a grave, but it’s clear the state aims to control the Catholic Church at any cost.
Within this landscape of control and coercion, we join two new young seminarians, Juraj (Samuel Skyva) and Michal (Samuel Polakovič), as they embark on a new journey at a Catholic theological school. Here, each boy supports the other as they dedicate themselves to serving the church. However, as they settle into the school, increasing state control threatens the boy’s sense of peace and security. Here, in the school corridors, Juraj and Michal’s faith, belief, and political views are challenged and changed as intrigue, murder, and oppression invade the safety of the school.
Shot in black and white within a constrained 4:3 aspect ratio, director Ivan Ostrochovský feels like a classic film noir, as the shadows of paranoia and brutality as the state squeezes the life from everything surrounding it. Each conversation among these shadows carries a quick-and-dirty risk assessment in a world that feels barren of emotion as Juraj and Michal navigate the hidden depths of growing state control within a confined religious environment. Here, the simmering tension of an emerging student revolt carries nail-biting tension as our young scholars attempt to navigate notions of religious freedom and personal sacrifice.
Ostrochovský’s delicate yet powerful portrait of youthful rebellion vs social and religious conformity is assured, as is the striking cinematography of Juraj Chlpik. Scenes of the boys playing table tennis or awkwardly mingling in organised dance sit side by side with secretive meetings, silent cigarette breaks and clandestine rooftop encounters. The church and the state already own every boy; their freedoms are dictated yet delicate in the hallowed halls of the school, and the concept of true freedom feels like a mirage.
Meanwhile, the adults dance to their own tune, held captive either through choice or necessity, with those daring to fight for a church-based concept of freedom either disappearing or enlisting in the army as the state’s grip tightens like a noose. Here, performances are sublime in their complexity and Servants final message is stark. The state and the church use control to differing degrees, resulting in societies where individual identity disappears, and conformity thrives. Yet both also regularly defy each other, with those caught in the middle the victims of two controlling authoritarian states.
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