Archa Theatre

Jaro, peklo, podzim, zima / Spring, hell, autumn, winter (programme from the performance)

Pafilm from the countryside of Ježíšek Franta (Lidové noviny, 23. 2. 1995)

A film about an academic courteous "pseudo-realistic" painter Martin Velíšek with the live accompaniment of Už jsme doma.

January 24, 1999 in the Archa Theatre
TV premiere February 23, 1995

Main roles: Martin Velíšek, Pavel Rajčan, Karel Ruppert, Zdeněk Marcín Matějka, Pavel Zajíček, Václav and Dan Štěpánkovi, Jakub Čermák, Miroslav Wanek, Jindra Dolanský, Romek Hanzlík, Milan Nový, Jan Cerha, Ondřej Štindl

Script: Pavka Rajčan Rajčanský, Václav Kučera, (Martin Velíšek)
Music: Miroslav Wanek, Jindra Dolanský, recorded group Už jsme doma and guests
Director of photography: Marek Jícha
Directed by: Václav Kučera
Production: Lexa Guha, Helena Vydrová, Bára Holnová
Sound: Michal Holubec
Edited by: Petr Turyna
Produced by: Creative group of Čestmír Kopecký, Czech television 1994

"Parealistic" Martin Velíšek (born 1963)

He is a graduate of the glass art atelier of professors Libenský and Svoboda from the VŠUP faculty. Since 1987, he has explored glass, art, pictures, photographs, primarily those of his colleague Michal Machata; he is represented in various gallery collections in the Czech Republic, France, USA, and Australia.
He is the founder of the pub "U vystřelenýho oka", and is a member of the musical group Už jsme doma, for whom he does their art work. His work captivates a special position not only in the area of the Czech art form. He studied as a glassmaker, but he prefers painting - he has also used this talent on his glass work at the end of Eighties. The dominant theme of his work is man, or yet better still to say, the male-body, meat, which is in his nakedness is confined in its own place, always in front of a window with a view to the horizon; later, it comes to the horizon individually. The bodies are very schematic at the beginning; their messages are constituted, above all else, by the situation they find themselves in, whether they are sitting in the pub or putting deer to pasture. These situations contain a specific black humor, "para-physical", through which we try not to allow anything to suffer by any agree.
The pictures always have a clear composition, which together with the rich use of lettering, reminds one of gothic painting. Velíšek tries to balance the two large themes of "The Last Supper" and "The Crucifixion". His two human saints from 1992 brought forth a scandal - members of the Catholic church managed to cover some of the pictures in the exhibition in Znojmo... The drawn line, which is characteristic in his pictures, brings him recently to the most radical deflection of the original material of his works... he is now interested primarily in the large cycle "Lyžaři" (The Skiers). The spoken story ends being the center of the sense here, and is taken over by the individual, detailed figure - the expression of the face - that which is left for the last.

Karel Císař, the courteous philosopher of UJD, wrote in his chimney in January 1995.

Pafilm from the countryside of Ježíšek Franta

In January this year, the Archa Theatre presented the film with the live music accompaniment of, Už jsme doma. The performance, which was their only live performance so far this year, was totally sold out. "For the first time I heard the group in concert under the statue of Stalin sculpture when I was making the documentary Totality zone. At that time, I didn't like them at all. But later, I found out that it was a completely different group," Václav Kučera avows. He spent ten years in the USA as a emigrant, then later as a theatre director and student of film and photography. He created a short profile of the group Už jsme doma when he was co-author of the television program Bago. During this collaboration, he met Martin Velíšek for the first time. "I consider the connection of the musical group with an actual painter as advantageous to both parties," Kučera says. He received the title "the courteous filmmaker" from the group.
"Martin is a strong individual. He is able to collaborate, but the collective chaos during the filmmaking process makes him nervous", the director reveals. He created the friendly medallion with script writer Pavel Rajčan and Martin Velíšek. It is freely interwoven by the music of the group Už jsme doma with the thoughts of glory and that period. Bizarre scenes from Velíšek´s pictures are depicted in the film "Jaro, peklo, podzim, zima" (Spring, hell, autumn, winter) in a fictitious countryside, where at the end of each pilgrimage waits the safety of a tiny house. "It is a playful pseudo-document, even I don't know if playful is the right word," speculates director Václav Kučera.(…)

Magdalena Bičíková, Lidové noviny, 23. 2. 1995