Wrong Side Up

Je crains que Petr Zelenka ait envisagé ce film comme étant plus accessible au public. Et que le personnage le plus sympathique aurait dû être le héros principal et non son père bègue dans un rôle secondaire. L'équilibre entre la tragédie et l'humour n'est pas non plus le plus précis et de nombreuses scènes comiques tombent dans l'absurdité. Cependant, c'est toujours une enquête assez agréable sur la folie humaine, où vous ne vous ennuierez pas et trouverez quelque chose qui vous est propre. (02/03/2005)

Zelenka screws the individual dialogues onto a simple plot but forgets that film is not theatre that can be convinced. In the world of moving pictures, the situations into which he sends his characters seem implausible and overly contrived. The (sub)genre notion of tragicomedy is fulfilled in none of them because the boiled hair, sexual voyeurism, and the romantic storyline itself lack a final point. The whole becomes just a boring, overly poser-like and wannabe farce, which when it finally ended after two hours, left on my tongue another of the many curses addressed to Czech cinema. (17/05/2007)

Whether thanks to the cast, the script, or the performances, I must say that this comedy belongs to the above-average Czech production, and I give it four stars with a clear conscience. The theatrical inspiration is noticeable, but that is not essential. Ivan Trojan portrayed his hero very convincingly, as he has him trained from the theatrical boards after all. It is not an exceptional film, but a decent comic relief without embarrassing moments and cheap flattery. Overall impression: 70%. (14/06/2006)

Director and screenwriter Petr Zelenka returned to his emblematic theme - stories of small human "derogations" to deviations, in the award-winning play “Wrong Side Up". After the response at the Dejvice Theatre, he moved the fates of his heroes to movie theatre screens and the question arises as to whether he did the right thing. Most of those who have seen the play say no. In fact, I am not surprised by this view, even though I did not have the pleasure of seeing it. The film version has a very strong and impressive skeleton in the form of the central characters (the excellent acting performances of all involved of course!) and several really brilliantly written episodes, and then a bit of excess muscle composed mainly of things that were forced in by film processing. An excess of image at the expense of the point, unnecessary lengthiness and loss of concentration, which is crucial to the story of one normal fool. Towards the end the film loses intensity and immediate viewer-character contact, which until then especially the excellent Ivan Trojan is able to maintain. Nevertheless, the result is a rather impressive combination of typical Zelenka sarcasm and sense of absurd and "everyday" tragedy. In my opinion, however, Wrong Side Up does not achieve the qualities of the slightly similarly tuned Buttoners, which was somewhat more cinematic. (25/03/2005)

“I give Dad about one month, maybe less!" The most serious movie by Zelenka so far, but even so it is an excellent comedy spiced with a nice dose of tragedy and loneliness. The main storyline concerns the relationship between Petr and Jana, wrapped up in lots of completely separate scenes that relate to the main story to a greater or lesser degree. It all relies on the actors and they are excellent. Down to the very last one. But, thanks to being given enough space, Ivan Trojan as usual shines out above the rest, as does surprisingly Krobot too, in the role of his father. In places you can tell that this is an adaptation of a theatre play and therefore lots of things had to be altered or left out. This is primarily a shame in the storyline concerning Petr’s boss, Karel Heřmánek and his “relationship" with Eva, because the whole thing ends with loose ends. And the ending? For a Czech, post-revolution movie, the ending works unusually well. (06/11/2005)