The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2020

Charlatan (Šarlatán)

Berlin Film Festival 2019: Charlatan (Šarlatán) | Review
27 February 2020
Jessica Wall
Avatar
Jessica Wall
27 February 2020

Movie and show review

Jessica Wall

Charlatan (Šarlatán)

★★★★★

Links

Facebook

Special event

Charlatan is based on the true story of Czechoslovakian herbalist and healer Jan Mikolášek, who healed millions of people in his lifetime through his unusual practise of diagnosing via urine samples and his understanding of herbs. From the vantage point of his arrest under spurious reasons after the death of the president, whom he had treated, we go back through his life to see how he developed his gift. He is apprenticed to an older healer woman, with whom he somewhat loses favour when she witnesses him slamming a bag of kittens to death against a rock. (She had asked him to drown them in deep water so they didn’t suffer.) We also see his sexual obsession with his assistant František (a provokingly handsome Juraj Loj), and his grudging collusion with the Nazis, who are entertained by his strange gifts. And we see him praying at the feet of Jesus, his knees on boulders – presumably to punish himself for his sexual tastes, though this is never explained completely. We see him hobbling about in his own personal prison, comforting himself with a lone flower, listing its properties. He lays down, a broken and exhausted old man, and is bellowed at to get up.

It is a bleak and gruelling two hours, with all of human frailty and weakness viscerally depicted. The story is truly fascinating, but tonally, the script is strange. Are we supposed to root for this man who shows flashes of pure evil (the kitten bludgeoning; the near sexual assault of his assistant before František eventually relents; preparing a tincture to cause František’s wife to miscarry)? Does he help people to assuage his darker impulses? No one is all good or bad, but this protagonist is so complex, so unlikable, so cantankerous and flawed that he is an unsettling choice for a biopic.  

Renowned Polish director Agnieszka Holland creates an immersive and claustrophobic world: the giant, deserted Soviet prison is used to great effect. Czech actor Ivan Trojan lives up to his name as a workhorse in the lead role, a charismatic face made for this moody film. However, some of the cruelty feels gratuitous and the plot is murky and oblique. The human capacity for good and evil is explored here in a memorable but miserable way.

★★★★★

Jessica Wall

Charlatan (Šarlatán) does not have a UK release date yet.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Watch the trailer for Charlatan (Šarlatán) here:

 

Related Itemsreview

More in Berlinale

A Little Love Package

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Sonne

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Gangubai Kathiawadi

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

“I was always trying to find this equilibrium between improvising and following the script”: Carla Simón on Golden Bear-winning Alcarràs

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

A E I O U – A Quick Alphabet of Love: An interview with Nicolette Krebitz

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Berlinale 2022: Awards predictions and highlights from the festival

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Concerned Citizen

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Rimini: An interview with director Ulrich Seidl

Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Jessica Wall

Charlatan (Šarlatán)

★★★★★

Links

Facebook

Special event

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Albert Adrià reopens Enigma on 7 June as a “fun-dining” restaurant and cocktail bar
    Food & Drinks
  • Paolo Nutini at the 100 Club
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Crimes of the Future: Three new clips from David Cronenberg’s dystopian body horror film
    Cannes
  • Plan 75
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • November (Novembre)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Forever Young (Les Amandiers)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • “Ruben is wonderful at picking holes in our behaviour and our egos”: Woody Harrelson, Ruben Östlundand and cast at the Triangle of Sadness press conference
    Cannes Film Festival 2022
  • Summer Scars (Nos Cérémonies)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Holy Spider (Les Nuits de Mashad)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Emergency
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Men
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Triangle of Sadness
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Aftersun
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Paris Memories (Revoir Paris)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Berlin Film Festival 2020: The Woman Who Ran (Domangchin yeoja) | Review
Berlin Film Festival 2020: Berlin Alexanderplatz | Review