Art preview: Faruza

A stunning history of cooperation between Czech and Finnish puppeteers has come to life in the center of Prague.

An ongoing exhibition documents 20 years of collaboration between a group of Finnish puppet artists known as Camera Cagliostro and Czech puppeteers, showing puppets, photographs, props and decorations from various films including The Kafka Trilogy and the group's latest film, Faruza, which premiered at Kino Lucerna Dec. 16. Visitors to the exhibition in the cavernous cellars of the Gallery and Café U Prstenu will not only learn the history of Camera Cagliostro's cooperation with Czech puppeteers, but will also get an insider's view of the workings of puppeteering and "how the mechanism inside an animation puppet is constructed," says Katariina Lillqvist, director of Faruza.

"Our puppet mechanic Ondřej Zika will lend us some bare pieces of the skeletons, and I think this will only add to the magic," she tells The Prague Post. "And according to the ghost-stories, Master Hanuš - the creator of the astronomical clock - once lived in the house and is still occasionally present. I believe he will be quite curious about our tiny creatures, too."

Lillqvist says the roots of this project go back two decades to Finland, when she was first exposed to Czech animation.

In the 1980s, Lillqvist was working as a documentary editor for the Finnish Broadcasting company, but she had an enthusiasm for Czechoslovak animation, having been exposed to filmmakers such as Jan Švankmajer and Jiří Barta in the Tampere Film Festival in her hometown of Tampere, Finland. But an even keener interest in puppetry inspired her to change paths.

"For years, I felt I would like to learn more about puppets, and when I finally won a grant for further studies in 1988, it was really hard to decide if I should go to Kraków or to Prague. Both of the opportunities were also difficult for political reasons: The Iron Curtain was strongly existing, and I had to prove my pure love for arts to convince the bureaucrats that I was not a spy using a student's coat," she says.

Lillqvist was allowed to come to Prague, where she has lived since, working closely with Czech animators and puppeteers on several award-winning films. In 1996, she won a Silver Bear award from the Berlin Film Festival for her film version of the Franz Kafka story The Country Doctor. But still, she says her proudest accomplishment has been the cross-cultural work she has been able to accomplish with her Czech colleagues.

"Through good and bad times, I have had the privilege to work with my devoted Prague colleagues, who are true magicians in terms of creating life where yesterday was only metal, wood and some pieces of old clothing," she says.  

Faruza tells the story of an isolated island kingdom in the Middle Ages, where the rulers lay down a strict law: Women must wear a copper mask from the day they turn 12 until the day they die. Apart from the obvious discomfort for those who are forced to wear the masks, the law makes things particularly difficult for the poor fishing families on the island, who must save for years to afford the mask and then cannot allow their daughters to fish with them because of its weight. One young girl, Faruza, decides to rebel against the law, befriending the island's hated blacksmith and escaping to a neighboring island. Adventure, of course, ensues.

Lillqvist says the idea for the clearly allegorical film came to her when visiting Tehran during the reign of President Khatami. While there, she learned that one of her films from 1995, The Maiden and the Soldier, was very popular among Iranians, and the main character, a strong yet melancholy girl who was seeking to escape with her fiancé from war, had become something of a cult figure.

"Later, when I was having a scriptwriting workshop, we started to create a 'sister character' for the maiden, who would live in an Islamic society. My students also believed that through the form of fairytale stories it could be possible to discuss sensitive issues like chadors without mentioning the symbol itself, as in the Iranian animation tradition the metaphors were always used quite in the same way as in Czechoslovak animation of the pre-1989 times," she says.

The result is a modern fairytale that has significant meaning for children and adults. Lillqvist worked with scenographer Veronika Doutlíková, sculptor Soňa Marková and dressmaker Marie Mastná, and decided on "an authentic medieval and oriental look for the puppets of Faruza."

"I think our puppets still have something that we inherited from the classic Czech school of animation, but their aim is not to imitate any particular style in general. If I am looking at my films in general, I have to say that I can find my fingerprints in the way we create the puppets," she says.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com