Charlatan (2020)
8/10
there are a lot of people whom we've never heard of but should know about
20 February 2024
Agnieszka Holland has been one of Poland's leading directors for the past few decades. Although she has no particular style, the movies of hers that I've seen were worth seeing. This now includes 2020's "Sarlatán" (sorry, IMDb no longer allows diacritics on consonants, so I can't write the title properly).

The movie tells the true story of Jan Mikolasek, a Czech doctor in the early 20th century whose unorthodox methods caused controversy. When the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia, they forced him to use his methods for them. Later on, the country's Soviet-backed government prosecuted him (his sexual relations with men probably contributed to this).

More than anything, the movie shows a part of history that most people have probably never heard of; I don't know how many people in Czechia and Slovakia know about Mikolasek, and in particular his sexual orientation. All in all, this is a movie that you should check out (can I say "Czech out"?).
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