Citizen Havel (Občan Havel)

Document 

A documentary film, Citizen Havel, observes ten years of the political, public and private life of one of the world’s iconic leaders – Vaclav Havel. Through the background of his story we can follow the development of a young democracy in The Czech Republic.

Synopsis

Remarkable in its openness and intimacy as a documentary, Citizen Havel, observes ten years of the political, public and private life of one of the world’s iconic leaders – Vaclav Havel.

The documentary film begins in early 1992 and follows a set of historical events all related to Vaclav Havel. This documentary reveals to us a private portrait of the first president of the former Czechoslovakia and later of The Czech Republic.

Havel was a loud voice of the anti-Communist movement and then a spokesman for democracy, which swept through Central and Eastern Europe in 1989. The film, Citizen Havel, has been created in an authentic manner, allowing the viewer to be a witness to the birth of a democratic president, through the development of his ideas and the decision-making processes that defined him.
What stands out most in the film is that Havel is a normal human being, whilst being unconditionally and undoubtedly devoted to his country. We watch him agonizing over a tie to go with his suit and we also see him fiddling with a saxophone that he is about to give to the former US President Bill Clinton, who will then go on to play it in the Prague jazz club, Reduta.

Czech Republic /2008/  119 min  Rating: 15+