Servants

Name: Servants
Genre: Drama
Released: February 25, 2022
Duration: 80 min
Rating: 78
Cast: Martin Sulík, Milan Mikulcík, Samuel Polakovic, Samuel Skyva, Tomas Turek

2022

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Generally favorable reviews based on 8 Critic Reviews

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Servants (US Trailer 1)

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Movie Details & Credits

Film Movement | Release Date (Streaming): February 25, 2022 | Not Rated

Starring: Martin Sulík, Milan Mikulcík, Samuel Polakovic, Samuel Skyva, Tomas Turek, Vlad Ivanov, Vladimír Obsil, Vladimír Strnisko, Vladimír Zboron, Zvonko Lakcevic

Summary: Two students of a theological seminary in totalitarian Czechoslovakia must decide if they'll choose the easier way of collaboration, or if they'll subject themselves to the surveillance of the secret police.

Director: Ivan Ostrochovský

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 80 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

Sarah Ward

Feb 25, 2022

This is an unsettling rebuke of government control and ideological manipulation — as well as a sharp cry against compliance with the prevailing status quo. Read full review

Natalia Winkelman

Feb 25, 2022

Ostrochovsky often begins shots with characters frozen in place for several seconds before they launch into action, as if they were chess pieces moved by God across the bare lines of the seminary’s crumbling stone architecture. Read full review

Simran Hans

Feb 25, 2022

Ostrochovský’s camera emphasises the constricting architecture of both church and state, with its black and white morality and a claustrophobic central courtyard, frequently portrayed via stiff, judgmental God’s-eye shots. Read full review

Tara Brady

Feb 25, 2022

Servants confirms the director as a major talent. Read full review

Guy Lodge

Feb 25, 2022

Servants is briskly shaped at just under 80 minutes, yet its alien-historical world-building is effective enough that you emerge from it feeling both out of time and out of breath: Any longer, and all humanity would bleed out of this earthly-but-ethereal conspiracy drama entirely. Read full review

Movie Nation Roger Moore

Mar 25, 2022

Ostrochovský never quite achieves “riveting” with this narrative. But he’s made a chilling reminder of the Bad Old Days, when the Cold War might have given the world moral clarity about who was for freedom and civil liberties and who sought to quash them. Read full review

Neil Young

Feb 25, 2022

If nothing else, the period picture represents an impressive change of pace from Ostrochovsky’s hard-knock feature directorial debut. Read full review

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Brent_Marchant

Mar 12, 2022

Chilling and thoughtful, director Ivan Ostrochovsky's second narrative feature spins an edge-of-your-seat tale while simultaneously delivering an insightful meditation on what it means "to serve" and presenting a workshop on outstanding camera work. Set in 1980 totalitarian Czechoslovakia,Chilling and thoughtful, director Ivan Ostrochovsky's second narrative feature spins an edge-of-your-seat tale while simultaneously delivering an insightful meditation on what it means "to serve" and presenting a workshop on outstanding camera work. Set in 1980 totalitarian Czechoslovakia, the film follows the gripping struggle of a group of students and administrators in a Bratislava seminary who are being pressured to cooperate with a Catholic organization that has agreed to side with Communist Party dictates to prevent the circulation of "subversive" ideas, all the while wrestling with their own hearts about doing what is morally and spiritually correct. Failure to go along with these requirements could result in seminarians being expelled and drafted into the military or, even worse, the permanent closure of the facility. This high-stakes morality play is a tale told in the shadows, one perfectly suited to the picture's magnificent black-and-white cinematography, which alone is worth the price of admission. The eloquent framing of each shot and the filmmaker's masterful execution of the picture's mise-en-scene element are among the finest I have ever witnessed, and they enhance the storytelling by skillfully embellishing the actions playing out on screen. Some may find the pacing somewhat sluggish, but this deliberately employed tactic significantly adds to the slowly simmering narrative, upping the tension as events unfold. What I most liked about this offering, however, is the deft handling of the themes that underlie the principal storyline, adding a level of depth that takes the film to an entirely different level. It's unfortunate that "Servants" has not received wider play or recognition than it has thus far, but, now that it's available for streaming online, here's hoping it garners the attention it genuinely deserves.… Expand

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