The dizzying mosaic of periods and plot twists in Agnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” submitted by the Czech Republic to the Oscars race this year, offered Slovak Dp Martin Strba some daunting challenges.
The story of an unorthodox master of folk medicine, who runs afoul of both Nazis and the Soviet-backed regime, called for visual styles as thoughtfully concocted as the potions of the protagonist, Jan Mikolasek.
Strba spoke to Variety about the film, which screens in the main competition section of the EnergaCamerimage Film Festival.What was it about the “Charlatan” script that appealed to you and how did you visualize it in your mind as you read it?I knew right away that it would be necessary to react visually to the nonlinear way it’s told.
It was a big challenge because Agnieszka did not want the time planes to be separated too obviously.
In the end, we agreed that the [Soviet] Normalization period,
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