Although it appears on the floor to be one other movie confronting the #MeToo phenomenon, Ondřej Provazník’s considerate and fairly beautifully nuanced drama takes a radically completely different strategy to the problem. At occasions, it’s actually a tough watch, notably within the final 15 or so minutes, however Damaged Voices will not be a lot about sexual abuse per se because the modus operandi of the abuser. Certainly, for many of its operating time, the villain of the piece — primarily based, visually in addition to thematically, on the real-life case of Bohumil Kulínský and his scandalous 30-year tenure as chief of the Kids of Prague choir — merely seems to be one thing of a bully, conserving his extra sinister motivations firmly beneath wraps.
The setting is the early ’90s, and the main focus of the movie is Karolina (Kateřina Falbrová), a 13-year-old Czech lady who fantasizes about following her massive sister Lucie (Maya Kintera) into the native choir. The 2 women are extremely aggressive, which even extends to racing one another dwelling, so when the choirmaster, Mácha Vitek (Juraj Loj), exhibits an curiosity in Karolina, the strain solely will increase. Vitek is a tough taskmaster, well-known for his pitiless regime, and he punishes even the slightest infraction. The women, nevertheless, simply soak it up, permitting him to undermine them at each flip within the perception that what they’re doing must be excellent.
And for some time, that concept holds some water; performing Dvořák’s “Moravian Duets”, the choir sounds little wanting heavenly. However slowly, it turns into clear that Vitek will not be merely concerned with Karolina for her soprano. In actual fact, even the ladies develop into conscious of it, teasing Karolina that they’re conserving a operating tally of all of the occasions that Vitek appears to be like at her. Being the age she is, and dressing within the lumpen, anti-fashion fashion of each awkward adolescent — very completely different to the extra assured Lucie — Karolina should persuade herself that she’s in it for the music, and that Vitek sees her true expertise.
The defining second that the movie builds to is a tour of America that Vitek is planning, an enormous pleasure for younger women raised within the final decade or so of the Chilly Struggle. Step one is a boot camp in a mountainous ski resort, the place Karolina is teased by the opposite women and will get a lot preferential remedy from Vitek that Lucie, enraged, locks her exterior within the snow and almost kills her within the course of. Evidently the dream is over, however, in a uncommon present of compassion, Vitek presents to take each women on the journey.
To name it a sluggish burn can be an understatement; it’s not a lot of a spoiler to say that Vitek is an enigma all through, and when he reveals his true colours as a sexual predator, Provazník handles the scene with discretion. As a result of, though the entire movie leads as much as this second, Provazník is extra involved with how we get there, creating a way of unease worthy of Catherine Breillat or, to a lesser extent, Michael Haneke. In that means, Damaged Voices is concerning the circumstances that enable abuse to occur; Vitek is sort of a vampire, a chilly and distant creature able to nice attraction, and Karolina, in all her disarming naivety, is straightforward prey.
As Vitek, Juraj Loj provides a masterclass in exhibiting with out telling, however the movie belongs to newcomer Kateřina Falbrová, whose superbly calibrated efficiency is equally rooted in ideas and emotions. It might additionally see Damaged Voices going throughout to awards season, following the trail crushed by İlker Çatak’s The Lecturers’ Lounge in 2023, being an identical, quietly devastating examine of a younger lady locked right into a nightmare world the place each seemingly good intention quickly goes stomach-churningly bitter.
Title: Damaged Voices
Competition: Karlovy Range (Crystal Globe Competitors)
Director/screenwriter: Ondřej Provazník
Solid: Kateřina Falbrová, Juraj Loj, Maya Kintera, Zuzana Šulajová, Marek Cisovský, Ivana Wojtylová, Anna Michalcová, Anežka Novotná, Markéta Kühnová
Distributor: Salaud Morisset
Working time: 1 hr 44 minutes
