User Reviews

I can't imagine anyone will ever make a better movie than this about the legendary founding of the city of Prague. That's right, Prague. Not Paris. Not London. Not Berlin. The Pagan Queen purports to tell the Dark Ages origins of Prague. Weirdly, though, it's not a foreign language film. It was made in the Czech Republic but everybody's speaking English, and largely unaccented English at that. This also isn't some trashy romp with topless chicks running around and a bunch of badly staged battle scenes that look like kids playing in the backyard with Nerf swords. There is some nudity and violence here but this is, more or less, a well intentioned effort at bringing a mythic page of Czech history to life and to his credit, co-writer/director Constantin Werner does a decent job of it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is a great movie or even a very good one. However, I have seen motion pictures so awful they would make you doubt the existence of a kind and loving God. The Pagan Queen has an above average cast, some very solid production values given its screamingly obvious budget limitations and is directed with a competent eye. The writing here is the weakest link, with a plot that should have dispensed with several side characters and their stories while imbuing either more realism or more imagination to it's main focus, but everything makes some kind of sense and I can admire the narrative ambition of the script. It feels like Werner clung a little to tightly to the legend when he should have concentrated on telling the best tale he could.

Libuse (Winter Ave Zoli) is a seer in 700 AD central Europe. When her father dies, she is elevated to the council of her kingdom and proves herself so wise and inspiring a leader that she is named queen. As she is pressured to marry, she instead carries on a secret affair with a lowly plowman named Premysi (Csaba Lucas) and sets her people to mining the great wealth out of their land. A dispute between miners and farmers eventually escalates to the point where Libuse must take a husband to calm things down and she manipulates a marriage to Premysi, who proves to be a hard and ruthless king. Eventually, a childhood friend of Libuse's (Lea Mornar) raises an army of women warriors in rebellion against Premysi and becomes another bloody foundation stone in the great city that Libuse dreams and Premysi sets about to create. There's also a whole subplot about Libuse's sisters (Vera Filatova and Veronika Bellova) and how they symbolize the decline of the "old ways" and the rise of Christian modernity.

Winter Ave Zoli is fine as Libuse, beautiful and capable of more depth than you might expect. Csaba Lucas gives a one note performance but hits that note exactly right. Lea Mornar is the standout here and gives real spirit to her part, though it's somewhat offset by her having an accent more pronounced than the rest of the cast put together. Frankly, there's no one on screen here that makes you think they got their role through some exchange of cash or sexual favors.

While there's an amateurish edge to the script, Werner did quite a job of making a film that looks good with little spent. The costumes and props look nice and everything is lit well and sounds clear. The sets are largely forest clearings and what appears to be medieval tourist attractions rented out for a day or two, but The Pagan Queen looks like a legitimate film and not something high school kids did with their camera phones over spring break.

With some romance, political intrigue, environmental moralizing and plenty of attractive actresses, The Pagan Queen is almost good enough to recommend. The story is just weak enough and the subject matter handled too demurely for that. What I can say is there's a lot of crap out there far worse than this movie. And if you've got a hankering to know the mysterious beginnings of Prague, you now know where to look.

The Pagan Queen is a brooding, meandering, very German affair that is more belonging to the arthouse than the fantasy genre. It is an interesting story told in an interesting way. This is a unique film with it's approach to both the history and the folklore the story focuses upon and what it has to say because of that. However, as complex as the drama is, and how good the production design compliments it, the fantasy genre, which holds The Pagan Queen with one foot, holds it back from being a truly standout work.

The genre atypical soundtrack, performances and cinematography, are not charming here as they would be in an Asylum film, here they weaken the film's impact. It makes it look tacky. The Pagan Queen has a lot to say, but it does not talk a good game. It's underlit, overly theatrical at times and is generally too lightweight in it's direction to make full use of the interesting ideas rattling about within the script. Shame, because a genuinely gripping film is buried here underneath all the chaff.

I am writing this especially as the movie has mostly positive reviews in here and I'd like to put some counterpart to them. To make things clear, I hated the movie. Well, "hate" might be too a strong word. It is so ridiculous you can't really hate it. If I overlook the fact that it is based on Czech mythology, it is a really bad movie. The idea is OK - people should take care of nature and try to live in harmony with it. The whole thing with women being one with natural order and men being mean, arrogant machos is rather far- fetched...but OK, the director has his ideas and I'm not taking them from him. But so many other thing drag it down. Props are...mostly not there. The story barely makes sense. Actors are mostly Czech and their English sounds verrry bad. (By the way, the two actors from Libuse's entourage are known for having lived in English-speaking countries before the Velvet Revolution, so one would expect them to sound at least a little native. Well, one would be wrong.) The dialogues are ridiculous and acting beyond anything describable in human language. And I could go on. The problem is, I cannot overlook the fact that this piece of...art...is based upon Czech mythology. I don't know what people imagine when they read "based upon". Yes, the movie has some common points with the Czech stories. Like names of the characters. And some parts of plot-lines. I just don't understand why the creators did't take parts of the Czech myths they liked and didn't use them without ever mentioning the source. Well, I do. No one would care that way. This gives the movie mythological flavour and somewhat justifies how awfully bad it is. Why is Vlasta lesbian? Or transgender or whatever. Libuse never tricks her men like she does in the movie, when she purposefully sends them to Premysl (she's a seer so she doesn't need to...), it actually turns her into some sex-driven, crazy puppet-master. Libuse should be dead when the war between men and women starts (the point of this story is completely different). And nor she nor any of her sisters is supposed to be a FAIRY. I mean what the hell? I don't want to seem like I am writing this out of spite. But I really believe this movie is an insult of storytelling, the art of cinema and anyone acquainted with the original mythology...actually, maybe of the whole Czech nation.

The film is based on a "true legend" and ranks on the historical scale of King Arthur. When the chieftain dies, the settlement is left to his three daughters. Libuse (Winter Ave Zoli) the youngest rules. She is a seer and a bit of a necromancer. Her one sister is a healer, while the other a priestess. She gets involved with a farmer and things to to pot.

This was the part of ancient Prague that speaks English with a slight accent and the women pluck their eyebrows, wear make-up, and shave their legs. The film lacks the heavy fantasy elements of other legends which makes it interesting. The fight scenes were a joke. Premysl was a transgender fight before Andy Kaufman.

Guide: Sex and nudity. No swearing.

This is a mythic tale combining legend and history, but above all it is a human drama. The Pagan Queen of the title is reputedly half Tree-elf and half human (there's a lovely myth about the girl's mother integral to the story), and her two sisters aren't fully human either, but the story doesn't directly revolve around their dual (magical or mythical) natures. Instead there is a strong message about Duality throughout the film; transitions; and balance in all things, especially human needs with nature.

It's a great story and visually satisfying. Overall I really enjoyed it. One of the things I liked best about the film was that it avoided most of the clichés so inherent in this type of film. The relationships were believable and complex. Even the reactions and betrayals of the people against their beloved Queen felt real and made sense in the context of the story and the times.

This is not a typical love story, and it's not your typical sword and sorcery flick. For anyone looking for lots of magic or swashbuckling sword play, you will be disappointed. The magic here is realistically spiritual and earth-based, not sparkling lights and instant fire spells. The film does a very good job of taking us back into the past and showing us what daily life and religious practices were probably really like in this time and place.

Now that I know it is based on traditional Czech legends I understand why it seemed as if the movie was trying to truncate a much longer story. Much like "Lord of the Rings", if you don't know the whole tale, the movie can seem a bit disjointed. The lengthy synopsis (with spoilers) relates the legend as it was supposedly told in the movie, but it did not actually follow the movie itself. If you read that synopsis before viewing the movie you may be confused.

On it's own, this movie never failed to entertain, but it did seem to struggle with timing. My biggest criticism may have had to do with the problems of making a Czech movie in English, in what surely was a second language for the actors and actresses. The main actress was lovely and the most believable, and I see a lot of promise in many of the leads, but the dialog sometimes suffered with awkward phrasing and the acting was occasionally flat--particularly the male lead.

From what I read in the synopsis, this was a controversial film when it was in its theater release. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because of the way it characterized an important relationship as lesbian--at least on one side. Perhaps because it portrayed the pagan way of life as so much more inherently fair and idyllic compared to what followed. Perhaps because it was so honest in it's portrayal of people generally considered legendary or mythical. The people in this film are all too human.