Two Ships

Eliška Křenková est excellente, remarquable et fabuleuse partout et dans tous les films. Malheureusement, pour ce qui est de Martin Kyšperský, je ne peux me détacher de l’image que j’ai du personnage tragique qu’il jouait dans la série Trpaslík, même avec la meilleure volonté du monde. Si ça a été filmé d’après des faits réels, alors je trouve ça infiniment triste, parce que même si ce n’était que de la fiction, je pense que ça peut arriver à n’importe qui, surtout à notre époque et en particulier en Tchéquie. (07/07/2022)

The makers of Two Ships seemed to be looking at American romantic-drama (personally, it reminded me a lot of Woody Allen) and tried to create something similar in Czechia, in Brno and its surroundings, which they succeeded in varying degrees. If it weren't for the mysterious illness, the film would have glided only lightly over the surface. Better three stars! (31/07/2022)

This movie comes up against the classic grey drabness of Czech cinema. The characters are blank, the story bland, the plot half-hearted and the ending very rushed. E. Křenková carries the whole movie on her shoulders alone; she suits the role perfectly. On the other hand the performance of M. Kyšperský, whose emotions I found utterly unconvincing, drags the movie down. The music and the choice of an important and sensitive topic are the two pluses of this movie. (29/09/2021)

I wanted to lament the strictly educational way the key scenes are narrated. But when I read in the other reviews that viewers perceive Eliška Křenková as a hypochondriac or a psychopath, I swallow hard and, willing or not, I praise the film at least for the still urgently needed enlightenment it attempts to provide. However, the form is a huge struggle for me. I understand the way Martin E. Kyšperský is making an attempt at self-psychotherapy, but the fact that he himself plays the role of the main character is the biggest disaster. I couldn't get rid of the feeling the whole time that he never fully immersed himself in the role, that he only caressed the emotions and mechanically recited the rest, without breaking through with fear or sadness in his own body. The journey of the two ships in the shared space lacks credibility because next to the closed and convincing Eliška he looks like a wooden puppet. The tension between the main couple is half-hearted, because we fall into their story just when they are already interested in each other. But why we see specific flashes from their beginnings, happiness, and problems is never clear to me, and instead of a reconciling point, we are thrown a meaningless dialogue about Pluto. I understand the metaphor, but why are they in that specific place at that moment? Even though the journey to Norway and back to domestic conditions is pleasantly modest and intimate, it founders on the same thing as every other film, namely the technical quality. The sound is an absolute tragedy, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that within ten minutes I had added subtitles so I would understand more than just every other sentence. (15/05/2022)