PRAMEN ZIVOTA
(THE SPRING OF LIFE)
2000

Bay Area Premiere
February 28, 2001

Cinequest San Jose Film Festival

A village girl with 'perfect Aryan features' leaves her village in Czechoslovakia to become an elite member of the Nazi breeders. She is luminous and does a good job in her role as an extremely religious and naive teenager. The filmmaker overpowered the audience at every possible turn with symbolism, drama, and especially the music. The music belonged to a much more campy-serious film or a soap opera. The idea is extremely compelling. A girl taught to be so in awe of Nazis that she'll do whatever they say. In the course of the film, however, she of course grows a backbone, falls for a Jew, and doesn't play by the rules. It was a good film, but could have been so much better.