After a long time, here is a comedy of foreign, but at the same time national inspiration, which has an important theme, a good pace and an adequate cast, mostly made up of younger actors and actresses. Czech television broadcast the first episode of the remake of the successful Belgian series on cancer on Sunday evening. Director Tereza Kopáčová’s team perfectly transferred it to the local environment.
Smysl pro tumor, which can also be seen on the iVysílání platform, accustoms us from the first seconds to its characteristic, frivolous and serious tone. “What? Cancer? It’s not possible! I’ve never experienced anything in my life,” a twenty-year-old boy says in amazement in a white-walled room.
“I didn’t even sleep with anyone,” he blurts out when we hear a giggle. Only then does the camera show us that we are in a medical classroom, where students learn to communicate a diagnosis to unfortunate patients.
Immediately, a sequence of shots colored by music, the so-called montage, introduces us to the main character. The ambitious young doctor and rugby player Filip, played by 28-year-old Filip Březina, wants to go as far as possible. The tall, handsome, competitive and successful winner is perhaps a somewhat atypical hero in the Czech Republic. In all respects Czech, like many protagonists of films made during and after the previous regime, on the contrary, his obsession with women and sex works. The series treats her as a source of humor.
Younger generations may already find girls packing like they’re on a treadmill uncomfortable and unrealistic. For the rest, Smysl pro tumor, at least after the first two episodes that journalists were able to see in advance, is doing quite well considering the local conditions.
The series as a band of clips
In subsequent sequences of shots, jokes and lively edited jokes, Filip introduces his classmates and the elementary school teacher Brukner, played by the brilliant cast Robert Nebřenský, takes us to rugby practice and continues with the description of his parents. They are played by Tereza Brodská with Pavel Řezníček.
Filip Březina plays the ambitious young doctor Filip. | Photo: Pavla Cerna
Philip’s life is not without flaws. He lives in Hradec Králové, which is regularly ranked as one of the most pleasant Czech cities, he is happy with himself and undoubtedly has a great future ahead of him.
Whether we find the entire series equally wonderful depends on audience tastes. Parts of connoisseurs looking for “niche” or extra quality titles might seem too banal. In some cases, they are tired of the fast pace of successive montages accompanied by expressive and atmospheric music.
Montage represents the basic narrative device of The Meaning of Tumor. But the action scenes intersperse clip-like sequences often enough to make it engaging. Thanks to this, most of the audience will probably remain in front of the screens.
The Czech version differs little from the Belgian original Gevoel voor tumor, awarded the Prix Europa award for the best series of 2018. A well-oiled machine copies almost shot for shot, sentence for sentence, differing only in small details.
Choosing a model in Belgium was a good move. Even if the Czech public is not as familiar with the work there as the Scandinavian one. In the last decade, however, several very high-quality series have been created here, including the stripper comedy Callboys or the murderously entertaining Clan, from which the more relaxed American remake of Bad Sister was made.
However, those who have not seen the Belgian original should not notice that The Sense of the Tumor has its origins outside the borders. The Czech version is so well set in the local environment, so well acted, acted and entertaining that it simply works.
The first episode of the Smysl pro tumor series was broadcast on Sunday evening on ČT1. | Video: Czech television
Nose cancer
The Czech filmmakers obtained a script written by cancer survivor Leander Verdievel from the Flemish VRT. Indicates both the overall structure and the takes and individual replications. However, the version edited by Matěj Podzimek presents some passages slightly differently – for example, it understandably shortens the sequence of the young hero’s crazy sex, which is already starting to seem more bizarre than funny.
Autumn also changes the tone slightly. Maybe thanks to the actors, this one seems a little funnier than the Belgian version. Filip Březina with the representatives of his classmates Mark Kristián Hochman or Jindřiška Dudziaková work just as well as Tereza Brodská with Pavel Řezníček in the role of the parents. You will also like the casting of Filip’s sister Natália Řehořová, known from the film Too Young Night and the TV series Volha, or the engagement of Alžběta Malá. She made an impression on the web in Five Years and here she plays a girl whose car the protagonist accidentally crashes.
Václav Werner Kraus, Mark Kristian Hochman and Filip Březina as Filip. | Photo: Pavla Cerna
However, the Belgian version more impressively handled the turning point when the hero discovers he has lymphoma in his nose. Cancer of the lymph glands. And that instead of the hectic life of a future top neurosurgeon, an unwanted slowdown, a reassessment of his entire life and depression await him.
The artwork managed to take viewers from a state of inattention directly into a numb examination of the new reality a little more convincingly. At the end of the first episode, when we hear brief testimonies from real patients who underwent cancer treatment at an unexpectedly young age, we end up in a completely different spirit than the one we started with. When you watch the Czech version, you’re always waiting for someone to shout “April!” at the end. The constant humorous tone somewhat drowns out the gravity of the situation, and Filip is more angry than devastated.
However, the inclusion of real people’s experiences at the end of each episode reminds us that the purpose of the series is not only to entertain, but also to warn and inform, which is undoubtedly a good public service.
The second episode tries to balance a serious tone with lighthearted fun. However, The Sense of Tumor feels like a comedy, only with a somewhat sad hero. The Belgian version was less afraid of putting the actors in a tragic position. His hero decides to finish his internship at all costs, but the mood really changes sharply. The people who were joking before give him worried looks. When a young doctor discharges other recovered patients in a hospital, we feel that it is already someone else.
In the Czech version, Filip’s friends look stunned or try to continue being funny. Tumor Sense maintains its comedic tone tooth and nail. Nonetheless, he continues to give us a good night’s sleep, to entertain and manages to convey a message to us about what it might be like when at twenty-five you discover that you will undergo chemotherapy. We’ll see how he behaves in the remaining six episodes.
Alžběta Malá as Hanka and Filip Březina as Filip. | Photo: Pavla Cerna
Redo the bet
Czech television can be successful with the new feature film in which the popular Jiří Bartoška played a supporting role. For a long time he hasn’t tried to make a high-quality comedy, except maybe Cuckoos, which is a different kind of series. Jan Hřebejk’s background to the events is instead a failed attempt at satire. For the rest, crime fiction has dominated the program in recent times, with the exception of the satire Volha, which bets on the normalization of retro and on the theme of Czech identity shaped in the 20th century by an anti-democratic regime.
Public television rarely tries new things and mostly relies on the certainty represented by crime films. Those who have more space are established authors such as Hřebejk, Jan Pachl or Jiří Strach, who are currently filming the second season of the detective series Docent, despite the low quality of the first. The works of these matadors are always included in the “prime time”, i.e. the most attractive broadcast time, while recent works by young creators such as the web series TBH by Lucie Kajánková or Pět let by director Damián Vondrášek were created only for the online platform iVysílní.
The dramaturgical choices of Czech television regarding prime time indicate an interest in the most daring and contemporary themes, the brand still bets above all on its famous conservatism. Tumor Sense nicely interrupts all this, but in itself does not mean a turning point. Another January series that could appeal to young people, director Adam Sedlák’s Adikts, will be included in the regular schedule, but not in prime time.
Competitive pressure
To prevent public television from being hit by a train, a foreign title well transplanted into the local environment can sometimes save it. At least until it decides to broadcast titles that are a little more informed about current affairs than Volha, Oktopus, Docent or Background of events, which are based on genre formulas or confirm attitudes now known to a large part of the public. society towards the past regime.
Competitors will also push television to change. The French group Canal+ is preparing its first Czech miniseries Daughter of the Nation, which is based on historical material but accentuates current trends. For three years now, the paid video library Voyo has been processing famous Czech stories from the recent past, from real crimes to the life of Iveta Bartošová.
Sooner or later, Czech television will also have to define its values and position in the series market more clearly. According to the global trend, where multinationals such as Netflix dominate, but public broadcasters still maintain a significant position, it can be estimated that safe bets may no longer bear fruit in the future. However, the sense of the tumor may be a promise of at least more variety, if not courage, as the Czech steps on the spot.
2024-01-07 19:21:06
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