{"id":55701,"date":"2025-11-06T18:24:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/?post_type=novinka&p=55701"},"modified":"2025-11-12T12:38:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:38:14","slug":"the-slovak-film-of-the-century-322-by-director-dusan-hanak-is-being-released-on-blu-ray","status":"publish","type":"novinka","link":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/news\/the-slovak-film-of-the-century-322-by-director-dusan-hanak-is-being-released-on-blu-ray\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slovak film of the century, 322 by director Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k, is being released on Blu-ray"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The feature debut 322<\/em> (1969) by director Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k, awarded the Grand Prize at the Mannheim Film Festival and chosen by Slovak film critics and scholars as the Slovak Film of the Century in a 2021 Film.sk magazine poll, is being released these days on Blu-ray with an extensive booklet and bonus materials. The film is a key work of the Czechoslovak New Wave, which was kept in the vault during the period of normalization before finally reaching audiences after the Velvet Revolution.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

322<\/strong><\/em> is a psychological story about the illness of an individual and of society. Its central character, Jozef Lauko, reevaluates his life and worldview in fear of an incurable disease. He interprets his situation as punishment for his past deeds, but also as an opportunity to rid himself of guilt and cleanse his conscience. The film was inspired by J\u00e1n Johanides\u2019s short story The Sources of Sea Attract the Diver<\/strong><\/em>. \u201cAlthough the screenplay for Han\u00e1k\u2019s film was created in collaboration with Johanides, 322 is more of a dialogue with the literary original than a direct adaptation,\u201d<\/em> explains film theorist and critic Katar\u00edna Mi\u0161\u00edkov\u00e1 in the Blu-ray booklet. \u201cThe film\u2019s story relies primarily on the atmosphere of quiet anxiety and the character of the protagonist; beyond that, it borrows only a few motifs from the short story, significantly changes the narrative strategy and the hero\u2019s name, and creates an entirely new plot. One could say it is a very loose film adaptation of the literary work.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k was the only director from the generation that debuted at the end of the 1960s who also had several years of experience as a documentarian, which was reflected in his work of fiction. Between 1967 and 1969, he paused his documentary projects to shoot his debut feature 322<\/strong><\/em>. \u201cThe literary character of the cook Lauko had no political background. I introduced the motif of the hero\u2019s guilt, who had once participated in political purges and collectivization, and I was intrigued by the paradox that such a person could also be good\u2026 What guided me was my strong personal sense of the relativity of values. Moreover, at that time, it wasn\u2019t considered appropriate for a young director\u2019s film to have a communist as the main character. My colleagues from the \u2018New Wave,\u2019 like me, had different value criteria \u2013 we were focused on the authentic lives of ordinary people, and party officials didn\u2019t belong among them,\u201d<\/em> Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k reflected on the film in retrospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside several non-professional actors and well-known figures from the streets of Bratislava, the film also included prominent Czech and Slovak actors, such as V\u00e1clav Lohnisk\u00fd as Jozef Lauko, as well as Josef Abrh\u00e1m, Miroslav Mach\u00e1\u010dek, Franti\u0161ek Zvar\u00edk, and the Polish actress Lucyna Winnicka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to film scholar Stanislava P\u0159\u00e1dn\u00e1, \u201cit is difficult to distinguish between main and supporting characters in the film, as well as their hierarchy. In this densely populated narrative, most characters are technically \u2018secondary,\u2019 but that doesn\u2019t make them marginal.\u201d<\/em> P\u0159\u00e1dn\u00e1 also writes in the Blu-ray booklet that the film\u2019s concept, style, and character design were fundamentally shaped by the principle of collage. \u201cCollage gave Han\u00e1k a broader creative range. In his authorial approach, he was guided by the hero\u2019s volatility, yet through an exceptionally sensitive lens. Through his eyes, he shows the human condition in all its misery, in a state of decay, from which the foundations of a new structure emerge.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the screenplay was approved for production already in 1967, filming began only after the 1968 occupation of Czechoslovakia. The entire film was shot on location in Bratislava, Prague, and Brno. In March 1969, the director of the Mannheim International Film Festival saw the film at a private screening in Bratislava. She secretly smuggled a copy abroad and, despite opposition from Czechoslovak Filmexport, entered it into the festival competition. The film went on to win the Grand Prize of the City of Mannheim, shared with Medium Cool<\/strong><\/em> (1969) by Haskell Wexler. After the onset of normalization, 322<\/strong><\/em> was withdrawn from distribution and locked in the vault. At the Days of Czech and Slovak Film in Bratislava in 1990, Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k received the Main Prize and the Golden Nail in the \u201cvaulted films\u201d category for 322, I Love, You Love<\/strong><\/em> (1980), and Pictures of the Old World<\/strong><\/em> (1972).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Blu-ray release of the film includes an extensive bilingual Slovak-English booklet, which, in addition to texts about the film by Katar\u00edna Mi\u0161\u00edkov\u00e1 and Stanislava P\u0159\u00e1dn\u00e1, also contains an unfinished interview from 2003 between Czech film journalist Ji\u0159\u00ed Cieslar and director Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k. In addition to a wealth of information about the filmmaking process, Han\u00e1k also answers the question of how he feels about the film 322<\/strong><\/em> after many years: \u201cAfter all these years, I\u2019ve finally admitted to myself that the film is \u2018anti-socialist.\u2019 I\u2019m glad it was made. I think I managed to express my life\u2019s feeling at that time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Blu-ray release of the film 322<\/strong><\/em> also includes two short bonus films by Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k: Analogies<\/strong><\/em> (1965) and Call into Silence<\/strong><\/em> (1965). It has subtitles in Slovak, English, and Slovak subtitles for the hearing impaired, as well as an audio commentary for the visually impaired. It is available for purchase at \u20ac11.90 in-store and online at the SFI Klapka.sk, and at Cinema Lumi\u00e8re. The Blu-ray was released by the Slovak Film Institute, with financial support from the Audiovisual Fund, the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic, and the Slovak Audiovisual Producer’s Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


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The feature debut 322 (1969) by director Du\u0161an Han\u00e1k, awarded the Grand Prize at the Mannheim Film Festival and chosen by Slovak film critics and scholars as the Slovak Film of the Century in a 2021 Film.sk magazine poll, is being released these days on Blu-ray with an extensive booklet and bonus materials. The film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":55582,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"kategorie_noviniek":[2027],"festival":[],"rok":[2331],"class_list":["post-55701","novinka","type-novinka","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","kategorie_noviniek-press-service"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/novinka\/55701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/novinka"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/novinka"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kategorie_noviniek","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kategorie_noviniek?post=55701"},{"taxonomy":"festival","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/festival?post=55701"},{"taxonomy":"rok","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfu.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rok?post=55701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}