What is to be Done? (A Journey from Prague to Český Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government)

With the Czech Republic in the throes of great change — the country has split with Slovakia, and the right-wing government of Václav Klaus is in power — filmmaker Karel Vachek takes a group of opinionated artists and intellectuals (plus one man in a bear suit) on a bus trip from Prague to the historic medieval town of Český Krumlov, a newly designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. The travellers include Ivan Martin Jirous, leader of the Czech psychedelic rockers Plastic People of the Universe, and dissident poet Andrej Stankovic. This expansive, unclassifiable film, a polyphony of politics, philosophy, art and culture, shot in the director’s trademark wide-angle, fluid style, is perhaps Vachek’s best known work. "In no way can it be taken as a thematic documentary about either life in Český Krumlov or the director’s fellow travelers and their opinions...but truly only as a subjective, authorial vision of the world, something that is typically achieved to this degree only in fiction film or in literature" (www.karelvachek.cz). Colour, 35mm, in Czech with English subtitles. 216 mins. + intermission