Czech Drama About Music and Sexual Abuse

Navigating a well-known subject with delicacy and a mind for emotional detail, Czech writer-director Ondrej Provaznik delivers a subtly powerful adolescent drama along with his latest feature, Broken Voices (Sbormistr).

Inspired by the true story of the Bambini di Praga (Children of Prague), a renowned Czech youth chorus whose director was convicted in 2008 of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, the film follows a quite foreseeable path but does so with loads of honesty and heart. After premiering in competition at Karlovy Vary, it could echo across more festivals in addition to arthouse distributors throughout Europe.

Set within the early 90s, when the Czech Republic was shedding the last vestiges of Communism and step by step opening as much as the West, Provaznik’s well-tempered scenario reveals how children born under Soviet rule were willing to do anything to explore the world outside of their homeland. For sisters Karolina (Katerina Falbrova) and Lucie (Maya Kintera), this implies getting chosen as A-list singers in a famous choir that’s about to embark on a tour of three major U.S. cities.

The hitch is that their celebrated chorus is run by Macha (Juraj Loj), a pretentious and rock star-like musical director who — whether or not this was intentional on the filmmaker’s part — seems to have “sexual predator” written throughout his cummerbunds. That sentiment is soon vindicated once we see Lucie queasily come home one night after crossing paths with Macha at a celebration, making it clear that among the choir girls need to pay a high price for getting picked.

At that time, the elder Lucie is the favourite and Karolina is barely the upstart. But as the previous recedes into the background after her run-in with Vitek, the latter becomes the focus of a teacher who shrouds his abusive behavior in a number of mansplaining about achieving the right pitch. By the point each sisters head with their chorus to Recent York, Karolina has turn into the brand new goal of Vitek’s predation. She’s aware of what she’s being subjected to, but too intimidated and overpowered to flee her fate.  

Provaznik tells the story primarily from Karolina’s standpoint, which is one in every of an innocent girl who slowly succumbs to the crushing forces round her. These include her parents, who’re bending over backward so their daughters can get chosen; Lucie and the opposite singers, who resent Karolina for jumping ahead within the line-up and make her pay for it afterward; and Vitek, who has obviously been abusing girls for a very long time and earmarks Karolina as his next victim.

After which there’s the allure of a choir that offered unheard-of opportunities for young women back then, during a moment that saw the Czech Republic and other former Eastern Bloc countries looking beyond the Iron Curtain. Provaznik hints at this during scenes of the teenagers dancing or singing along to rock songs, with Vitek accompanying them on his guitar. It’s an ideal image of the euphoria Karolina and the others experienced — a euphoria undercut by the trauma and humiliation a lot of them would suffer.

Shot in grainy 16mm to raised capture the mood of the epoch, Broken Voices keeps its drama grounded within the social and cultural realities of its time. Provaznik coaxes strong performances from the young solid, whether of their chorus rehearsals or behind the scenes. Loj can be memorable as a teacher who abuses his power with none regrets in any way, at a time when such abuses mostly went unpunished.

Nearly all of the drama is about in two charming locations: a distant ski resort where Vitek sequesters the choir for a two-week boot camp before their big tour, subjecting them to intense practice sessions followed by co-ed visits to the sauna; and an upscale hotel in Manhattan where he eventually makes his move on Karolina. The latter sequence is artfully staged in a single fixed shot, with a window giving out onto an apartment whose inhabitants are completely unaware of what’s happening just across the way in which.

As dark because the film can seem, it’s also full of moments of harmonic bliss at any time when the women perform. Their voices should not only what carry them out of the Czech Republic toward broader horizons; they assist turn this thoughtful docudrama into something more contemplative and stylish. The musical numbers culminate in a scene that shows Karolina bravely, sadly and desperately doing the one thing a lady in her position can do — becoming a solo act of resistance in a world of utter submission.