Bílá paní/The White Lady (Zdeněk Podskalský, 1965)

Title: Bílá paní/The White Lady

Studio/Distributor: Film Studio Barrandov/ Ústřední půjčovna filmů (Central Film Lending Library)

Director: Zdeněk Podskalský

Producer: Film Studio  Barrandov

Screenwriter: Karel Michal, Zdeněk Podskalský

Cinematographer: František Valert

Sets: Josef Calta, Miloš Sršeň, Ludmila Sovová

Editor: Zdeněk Stehlík

Length:  2585,3 metres

Duration: 92 minutes

Genre: Comedy, Satire

Cast: Vlastimil Brodský, Rudolf Hrušínský, Miloš Kopecký, Irena Kačírková, Jiřina Bohdalová, Josef
Bek, Čestmír Řanda, Václav Voska, Vlasta Chramostová, Vladimír Hlavatý, Ilja Prachař, Darja Hajská,
Václav Trégl, Zdeněk Řehoř, Vladimír Menšík

Year: 1965, premiere on 24^th September 1965


Synopsis :


In a small Czech town, a mediaeval ghost,  the White Lady of Komonice comes out of a castle
painting when there is a full moon and does good for the local people. In response to a request
from  an old age pensioner, she installs a water tap in her cottage  and provides the local town
with a number of other amenities which the local council has patently failed to organise. The
ruling communist officials are horrified, but eventually, they come to terms with the existence of
the ghost and  try to incorporate it into the town´s economic plan, seeking to give the White Lady
major building projects to accomplish.  But the castle warden, a “lover of truth” to the horror of
his despairing wife (“There are truths punishable by 20 years´ imprisonment!”) reports the
existence of the ghost to the Prague authorities, launching  an official investigation. The
central  authorities remove the painting to a depository in Prague, just at the time when
celebrations are organised in the town to mark the building of a new bridge. Her absence is why the
bridge does not materialise, yet the  townsfolk plunge into the river anyway, praising the new
bridge while swimming across.

Critique:

Although this is a hilarious comedy, the film functions as an incisive social commentary. It is  a
precise sociological study of the mechanism of a totalitarian regime. Its main feature is the
shoring up of power to the exclusion of all else.

Marxist totalitarianism East European style always prided itself on controlling the natural
environment. In this respect, it was the product of  19^th century historical optimism (“History is
developing towards ever better ends, Man will always be ever richer, happier and more in control.”)
– The slogan of the Stalinist 1950s was “We shall control even the wind and the rain”. This is why
it is ironic that a regime that prides itself on mastering everything, from every individual to all
natural phenomena, is suddenly at a loss when confronted with a manifestation of natural reality –
the appearance of a mediaeval ghost.  In its outcome, the film argues that the regime actually does
not control anything and is locked within the fantasy of its own virtual world.

The town is run by two communist officials, who are extremely ineffectual. Nothing in the town
works. When the White Lady “installs” a water tap into the house of the old age pensioner, the
power machinery of the town almost  grinds to a halt. The two communist officials decide to solve
the “problem” bureaucratically: the water tap hasn´t been recorded in any paperwork, it is a “bad”
water tap and will be dug out.  The town rebels and the officials are forced to backtrack. But the
central authorities from Prague cannot cope with the phenomenon of the “White Lady” either.

The film is primarily a parody of official communist, bureaucratic “newspeak” – this is clearly
apparent when one of the Prague officials is trying to telephone his superior to inform him that
the White Lady really does exist. The ideological language that officials use makes it impossible
for them to communicate meaningfully.  The regime´s newspeak does not allow its representatives to
talk about real things.  The film argues that the communist system controls society  by means of an
ideological metalanguage through  which it tries to subjugate natural reality.  Everyone in the
film knows that whatever is being said in public is untrue, but everyone  goes along with it, to
the point of absurdity. But natural reality is not controllable by language and eventually the
regime will collapse, warns the film. Even in the Prague depository, the White Lady will not be
controlled.

The film is also a   satire on the conformism of ordinary citizens. However,  it sympathises with
their predicament up to a point. They have been pushed about so brutally for so long that it is now
no wonder that they ignore the authorities, go through the paces of what is ritually required of
them, and otherwise attend to their own interests.

 The film culminates in a famous scene, when the White Lady is meant to have created a new bridge,
but the Prague officials had, in the meantime, taken the castle painting away. This does not
prevent the population of the whole town from plunging enthusiastically into the river, chanting
happily “Long Live the New Bridge”. When Pupenec, the “lover of truth”, complains in the middle of
the river that there is no bridge, his wife snaps: “Shut up and swim.” – This scene illustrates
rather persuasively that the enthusiasm of the participants of the May Day parades in Eastern
Europe under communism – by definition the enthusiasm of the  participants of any official rallies
in dictatorships – is hypocritical and artificial.