If you missed the opening credits of “Il Boemo” (“The Bohemian”), you would be forgiven for wondering if you had just walked into a remake of “The Phantom of the Opera.” The 18th century Czech composer Josef Mysliveček (pronounced MISS-leave-a-check), depicted at the far end of a dissolute life, removes his unnerving doll’s mask to reveal the physical wear-and-tear on a ravaged face. The only thing missing is the organ music and a shrieking maiden. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying so, any more than I would be if I mention Signor Salieri’s suicide attempt at the beginning of “Amadeus.” After all, this is biographical drama, and not a jump-scare horror movie.
“Il Boemo” does not pull any punches as it follows Mysliveček’s Hogarthian trajectory, which is to say morally downward, even as this struggling artist from the provinces (he was born in Prague, coincidentally where Casanova lived out his later years) rises to the pinnacle of Italian opera.
It’s all the more tragic, really, because, as played by the likeable Vojtěch Dyk, Mysliveček’s not really a bad guy. He’s not cutthroat or particularly calculating. He makes some questionable decisions, but he isn’t trying to hurt anyone. At worst, he’s passive when convenient, allowing the influential ladies in his life to do all the heavy lifting. And maybe he’s a little self-absorbed. He makes one trip home and he’s guilted by his twin brother (also played by Dyk) for not being more involved with the family. But come on, it’s a long trip. Back then, travel was really TRAVEL. Okay, and perhaps he’s a little libidinous. After all, he’s only flesh and blood! One thing’s for certain: on his climb to becoming one of the most successful composers in Europe, and certainly Italy, he walks a narrow, often claustrophobic path.
If the film is anything to go by, life in Venice is a perpetual masquerade. Is it always Carnival there? If so, why is there no joy or festivity? Everyone is cloaked in black and veiled in forbidding masks. They traverse miasmic canals in lugubrious gondolas. Chambers are shadowy and adorned with heavy oil paintings. Women are trapped and stifled in loveless marriages. The aristocracy is twisted and its whims must be navigated with care.
To make such a picturesque world seem so confining is a pretty neat trick. The use of handheld cameras for certain scenes contributes to a sense of being boxed in. The sets and costumes are luxurious without ever attracting undue attention to themselves. The film was shot in historical locations in the Czech Republic (as was “Amadeus”), but the focus is always on the characters as human beings. There’s no ogling the scenery, no distracting awareness that these are 21st century actors playing at fancy dress, pitfalls of too many historical dramas.
Nor is this a film strictly for pointy heads. It’s an absorbing, human story that just so happens to be set in the world of classical music. The 143-minute running time goes by very quickly. Yes, it’s subtitled (most of the film is in Italian), but it is never less than thoroughly engrossing. I would think this would be the case anyway, regardless of a viewer’s musical knowledge or interests.
But if you ARE a classical music lover, there is a bonus in Mysliveček’s undeservedly neglected music. On the soundtrack, countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and sopranos Emöke Baráth, Raffaella Milanesi, and Simona Šaturová join the Baroque orchestra Collegium 1704, conducted by Václav Luks. You’ll also hear music by Baldassare Galuppi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, Johann Adolph Hasse, Antonio Vivaldi, and Luigi Boccherini’s famous “Minuet.”
By and large, Mysliveček is a name, I suspect, that is still unknown to many (and unpronounceable to more). In fact, it’s a miracle that the film, an international co-production made possible by at least a dozen Czech, Italian, and Slovakian sources, was even made. Why it was not accepted as a foreign film entry in 2022’s Academy Awards is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was an exceptionally competitive batch of applicants.
A lot of the film is necessarily speculation. We don’t know much about Mysliveček’s love affairs, but we know he had them, and on a prodigious scale. But the story is dramatically convincing without ever overplaying its hand.
Its depiction of the boy Mozart (for a time, Mysliveček was a close family friend) is more historically believable than Tom Hulce’s glam-rock free-spirit in “Amadeus” (for as much as I love the movie). “Il Boemo” takes a different approach, and Mozart’s “cameo” is one of the film’s highlights. “Amadeus” excels as popular entertainment that manages to float larger questions about human nature and the mystery of art, while transcending slavish adherence to plodding historical fact. “Il Boemo” too shakes off the dust of the research library, but with quite different results.
One thing the film really gets right is the historical reality of what a night at the opera was in those days, with people shouting, jeering, eating, playing cards, attempting suicide, and otherwise behaving badly. And the nobles perhaps worst of all. It’s good to be the king!
I hasten to add, for as good as it is, there are a few moments that are definitely not safe for work and could be a mite disturbing, or at least unsettling, as they are no doubt meant to be. It’s not exactly a movie for family night. There’s some pretty gruesome make-up, at least one orgy, and a very strange scene in which a king engages in some private business in the middle of a conversation in a singer’s dressing room. If you want to introduce the kids to classical music, I’d advise you to stick with Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
For many, the use of “Bohemian” in the title might suggest artistic or even iconoclastic associations, as in “bohemian lifestyle” or “La bohème.” But to those with a sense of history, it might also indicate someone who is from what is now the Czech Republic. (Think Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia.”) You see, the Italians couldn’t pronounce Mysliveček either. Hence the nickname “Il Boemo.”
The director, Petr Václav, also made a Mysliveček documentary in 2015, “Confession of the Vanished,” which I’ll be adding to my watch list. I see it’s available for streaming here.
https://dafilms.com/film/10302-confession-of-the-vanished
“Il Boemo” might not be a feel-good romp along the lines of Tony Richardson’s “Tom Jones,” but neither does it leave you feeling grim like “Dangerous Liaisons.” I suppose it’s a little bit of the “Barry Lyndon” school, except “Il Boemo” involves, rather than distances.
The film streams free on Kanopy with a library card. Or at least that’s the case where I am. Maybe it depends on the library. You can find out more at the links.
“The Bohemian” on Kanopy
https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/15033207
The trailer
