The Fifth Horseman Is Fear

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Audience Member Gorgeous classic black and white with rich characters in a fascinating and terrifying predicament. The doctor seems to be constantly covered in raindrops... Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member I really tried to give this film chance but found myself bored and working on my laptop while passively watching this film. It had too much 1960's in it for me. Some films can transcend time and transport the viewer back to the time period the film is suppose to take place in; this is not one of them. I did enjoy the few shots of Praha throughout the film; it is a great city I have been lucky enough to visit twice. There are several shots in the movie that are very artistic and I really like. Roger Ebert called this "a nearly perfect film." I would have to disagree. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member A masterpiece. A unique Holocaust story (which is also a commentary on communism in Czechoslovakia). This film puts a shamed and degraded man on display and has him fight to regain his humanity. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member "The Fifth Horseman is Fear" was released in 1964 in B&W, and though it was supposed to be a movie about the oppression under Nazi rule in Czechoslovakia during WW II, it was more of an indictment against the oppressive Communist regime of the period. The movie centers around Dr Braun [Miroslav Hajek],an old Jewish doctor who has been forbidden to practice medicine in Prague under Nazi rule. Instead, he works as a clerk, tasked with the cataloguing confiscated Jewish property such as furniture etc. He lives in an apartment building where he shuns human contact out of fear of being denounced, and his only solace is his violin. The other inhabitants of the building also exhibit symptoms of extreme oppression - a discontented housewife occupies herself with mindless retail therapy, and old woman veers on the edge of madness, fearing the seizure of her pets, and many others who all seem to be exhibiting similar symptoms of paranoia. Things get even stranger when Dr Braun finds himself having to care for a wounded partisan, concealing him in his own apartment complex as he tries his level best to procure morphine for the wounded man, roaming about the city, experiencing surrealistic events. As mentioned earlier, this movie may seem like the portrayal of people's fears under the Nazis in Prague, but it is in fact more of an allegory about the suppression of freedom under the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Some of the anachronisms noted in this movie attest to this. On the whole, this is an excellent movie and I was glad that it was made available on DVD. But, there is an important scene that has been deleted on this DVD - that of the SS brothel scene. The good doctor wanders around the brothel, encountering strange people, all the while searching for the elusive morphine. The scene has lots of nudity portrayed, but I still wonder why this was censored on the DVD, given that TCM showed the movie in its unexpurgated version? I do hope future releases of this Czech masterpiece will have the film in its entirety. As for special features, there is an onscreen intro by Andrew Horton, a cinenotes collectible booklet, and a scene selection feature. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Audience Member As I see it there are two problems with this film. The first is the unsettling mix of humour with the holocaust. This objection is so obvious and immediate that I almost wonder if the use of humour works to some subtler end that I have not yet acknowledged. The Czech New Wave (even more than the French New Wave) often mixed humour with politics (specifically, in the case of the Czech, with the liberal politics of the Prague Spring). Here the urgency of the politics is overshadowed by intrusive physical humour and M. Hulot-esque comical desperation. An easy contrast one could make would be with the recent Romanian film 'The Death of Mr. Lazarescu,' which treats its serious topic with sensitivity and a dose of laughter to just the right measure. Just as (unconsciously?) distasteful is the moment a lingering camera turns a shocking scene of Jewish women are used as sex-slaves into something reminiscent of an exploitative brothel scene that would fit well in 'Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.' The second reservation is the attempt to use fascism as a stand-in to criticize communism (a typical move to get by the censors after Prague 68). Implied in this political metaphor is the idea that the evils of fascism, by virtue of being totalitarian, are comparable in every way to the USSR. This important distinction (and the neoliberal attempt to collapse it) deserves a greater treatment than what a film rating can provide, so I turn those interested to Zizek's "The Two Totalitarianisms": http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n06/zize01_.html Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member A story of human interest and connection between people. One risking his life to help another in order to ease his pain. This story is, for lack of a better word, kind of touching. The standout for me is the photography. Some great compositions and framing only enhanced by the black and white film highlighting the strong contrast. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Fifth Horseman Is Fear

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