Rok ďábla

Avant de regarder ce film, Jarek Nohavica était pour moi un terme inconnu. Après la fin du film, j'étais un peu confus, mais en même temps, une aura de mystère et de charme s'est formée autour de Nohavica pour moi. Et maintenant, j'ai hâte d'avoir un jour l'occasion de lui faire par exemple une interview. Peu importe qui il est en réalité, je ne pourrai jamais le percevoir indépendamment des sentiments que ce beau film m'a fait ressentir à son sujet. (24/09/2002)

Wonderful mystification, in which a great amount of work is done by the music and sensitivity with which Zelenka plays out real characters in a fictional game full of great jokes and impressive poetics. Plíhal as a silent angel, Nohavica as an uncommunicative guru, and Čechomor as boys on the rise. When viewed from a distance, in some parts one might think that Zelenka is quite the clairvoyant prophet. He’s simply good at working with this genre. (17/03/2008)

In the end, I'll give it 3 stars, but just barely. I expected that Year of the Devil would have a much stronger and more compact impact. Especially because I had a good experience with Zelenka's mystifying quasi-documentary Happy End in the past. I'm thinking about what disturbs me so much and it's probably the celebrity dimension of the film. Nohavica, Plíhal, and the band Čechomor are essentially playing themselves and there are a number of Nohavica's actual songs in there. The film is actually relying on Nohavica's popularity and stealing his real lyrics. A good mystification utilizes some popular phenomenon, but it's not literal. I consider the British film The Rutles to be a very good example, as it made fun of Beatlemania. Year of the Devil does have funny moments and entertaining scenes, but I lost interest in the film during several passages. And to return to the celebrity aspect of the film, it's quite characteristic that Jan Hřebejk or Saša Gedeon appear in the credits, even though they only appeared for a few seconds as themselves. Nohavica also had a somewhat disturbing effect on me, as he suits the role of an "actor" much worse than the guys from Čechomor. Overall impression: 50%. (01/02/2015)