In October 1980, the students of the “Sts Cyril and Methodius” Faculty of Theology in Bratislava went on a hunger strike as a means of protesting against the planned visit of Pacem in Terris to the seminary. Pacem in Terris was a religious organization that was founded and financed by the Communist state, whose true aim was to surveil the members of the clergy and to implicitly limit the influence of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia. This event serves as the inspiration for director Ivan Ostrochovský’s newest film, Servants. Ostrochovský was only seven years old in 1980, but it’s clear from the very first shots that his latest work is not preoccupied with the kinds of pseudo-affective scenographic artifacts which litter many of the recent features that are set during the communist era. Servants bills itself as a parable, and as in the case of Pawel Pawlikowski’s recent Cold War, it’s shot on black-and-white film stock, in the 4:3 Academy ratio. This specific visual formality gives the film a certain aura of universality, in which objects like crochet doilies don’t belong – the film’s beginning, with its industrial allure, looks like it could very well be set in the 1950s, the 2000s, or even in a dystopic 2050s.

Codrin Vasile

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He studied directing at UNATC, where he wrote articles for Film Menu. He also wrote his degree paper on D.A. Pennebaker’s early filmography. He is interested in analog photography and video art. He hopes for a Criterion release of Shrek 2. He makes movies.

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