Czech director's "The Way Out" brilliantly captures ghetto life

Petr Václav’s film "Cesta ven" ("The Way Out"), which is heading to the Cannes Film Festival, is more than a success. Unlike the author of the recent naive, romanticized "documentary" film called "Gadjo", Václav knows his subject – he knows how people in the ghettos live, what bothers them, and what their problems are.  

Filming took place in the actual exterior and interior settings of Ostrava and its surrounding areas, including the famous ghetto on Přednádraží Street. The main roles are played by Romani people who are not professional actors.

The cinematographer was Štěpán Kučera, who has already collaborated with Václav on the films "Marian" and "Parallel Worlds" (Paralelní světy). The film portrays the manifestations of a culture of poverty that prevents the impoverished from living normal lives here.   

The main aspect of that culture is permanent indebtedness, which is linked to frequent collections procedures and results in a lack of freedom and a loss of life prospects. Ordinary people in excluded localities are in thrall to the mafia:  Drug dealers, loan sharks, the owners of apartment buildings and residential hotels with impoverished tenants, the owners of casinos and gaming rooms, and pimps (some of these mafiosi are also Romani).   

In the ghettos, drug use, gambling, petty crime, prostitution and total desolation spread. In addition, people are up against the bureaucratic, unfriendly approach taken toward them by the state (through laws aimed against those on welfare) and the local governments, who make their lives unpleasant through daily, petty slights.  

Discrimination in access to housing, on the labor market, and in the schools is unfortunately an ordinary component of ghetto life. People often do not have the means, the strength, or the will to commute to regular employment or to school.

"The Way Out" tells the story of a woman who resists this "predestination" and refuses to succumb to it. She opposes the perpetration of crime, pushes her family to regularly attend school and work, doesn’t want to be indebted to or dependent on others, and fights hard so that she and those closest to her can hold on to that position.

This dream of a way out of the ghetto by emancipating oneself from the stereotypes of life there does not seem, at first glance, to succeed, but for the people who live in the most impoverished enclaves in the Czech Republic, victory can consist of things that might seem like ordinary parts of life, like nothing special, to "outsiders". The greatest such victory for the heroine of the film is keeping her family together (both the nuclear family and her extended Romani family) on her own terms.

Václav has handled the problem of "credibility" – how to present the culture of poverty and how it determines people’s lives so as to make it credible even to viewers who know nothing about a ghetto environment and live in relative comfort – very well. The director-screenwriter has not omitted any problems, but he introduces them carefully, bit by bit, and even so, we can tell that the obstacles portrayed are both debilitating and quotidian.

The main roles are played in the film by Klaudia Dudová, Natálie Hlaváčová, David Ištok and Mária Zajacová-Ferencová. The performances by all of the protagonists are remarkable.

"This story is chillingly convincing, it doesn’t slide into a moralizing social indictment. It provides us with a unique insight, unencumbered by judgment, of an exotic yet nearby world," distributor Jan Noháč described the film.   

"Cesta ven" (The Way Out) will premiere in the Czech Republic on 29 May, but before that it is one of the few Czech films in recent years to experience its international launch at the Cannes Film Festival. Director Petr Václav drew attention abroad with his previous works, "Marian" and "Parallel Worlds" (Paralelní světy) as well. 

Václav has now returned to Romani themes in his work after spending several years abroad, mainly in France. "Cesta ven" was supported by the State Fund for Cinematography and co-produced by Czech Television together with the French company Cinéma Defacto. 

The film is the debut production of the moloko film company. Its producers are Karel Chvojka, Miloš Lochman, and Jan Macola. 

Clips from the film are available online at iDNES.cz. Stills from the film are available on its Facebook page.