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Kawasaki's Rose

2009 1h 40m Drama List
87% Tomatometer 15 Reviews 60% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
A famed dissident is accused of collaborating with the government by turning a friend in.

Critics Reviews

View All (15) Critics Reviews
Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times This intricate, powerful, unsettling film brings us into a world of profound moral complexities where facile judgments must be suspended because even the best people can become complicit in evil. Rated: 4/5 Oct 26, 2011 Full Review Jesse Cataldo Slant Magazine The first film to confront the ghosts of government collaboration in communist Czechoslovakia may be new for Czechs, but otherwise it's a familiar invocation of a problematically buried past. Rated: 2.5/4 Dec 1, 2010 Full Review A.O. Scott New York Times The point of this thoughtful, moving film is that the motives and actions that define human ethics are never simple and that the Communist regime was especially adept at exploiting this complexity for its own ends. Rated: 4/4 Nov 24, 2010 Full Review Joseph Proimakis Movies for the Masses full review at Movies for the Masses Rated: 3/5 Mar 1, 2011 Full Review Leslie Stonebraker New York Press As an exercise in cultural memory, Kawasaki's Rose is cathartic. Feb 25, 2011 Full Review Simon Miraudo Quickflix I haven't seen so much information so lazily and clunkily delivered since the finale of the 2007 French film Tell No One. It doesn't matter if you've not seen it; just know that it should have really been called: Tell Everyone. Everything. Ever. Rated: 2/5 Jan 23, 2011 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (9) audience reviews
Audience Member Kawasaki's Rose is a very European film, with some very deep messages pertaining to social change, in this case from Communism to the current Republic setting of the Czech Republic. It is built around strong performances. One of the scenes, featuring a daughter (Lenka Vlasakova) and her mother (Anna Simonova) confronting each other over the shady past of the father, is a beautifully acted and shot scene, and sets the tone for what's to come. A great hidden gem. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Over reliant on interviews to tell the story but since interview/interrogation is so crucial to the story this is likely intentional and not as damaging as it would have been in most films. Worth seeing. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/12/23 Full Review Audience Member This is an intelligent, beautifully acted film. It's humanity is universal. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Despite rather irritating and shaky beginning with unnecessary plot discursion, later the story gets clearer, the pace dramatic and the atmosphere thick. The story of people affected by communist secret police methods. Colboration, betrayal, morality, remorse and reconciliation. And secret police swines keep on smiling... Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member Over reliant on interviews to tell the story but since interview/interrogation is so crucial to the story this is likely intentional and not as damaging as it would have been in most films. Worth seeing. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/08/23 Full Review walter m In "Kawasaki's Rose," Lucie(Lenka Vlasakova), a middle-aged woman, is ecstatic to hear that the large tumor removed from her is benign. So, she does not really care that she will be written up in a medical journal. However, she is definitely less than thrilled to hear that while she was sick, her husband Ludek(Milan Mikulcik) had returned to his former lover Radka(Petra Hrebickova), despite their trying to make amends with a large amount of eastern philosophy. Radka is also a producer on a television special about Pavel(Martin Huba), Lucie's father and a psychiatrist, who is about to be awarded the Memory of a Nation Award for his work as a dissident under the Communists. "Kawasaki's Rose" is a worthwhile movie but not an easy one to get a handle on, as the focus and literally the terrain shift so much. The movie starts out political, then turns into a family drama, before getting back into politics with two separate sides of the same story, before eventually settling on family again. If there is a central character, then it is Lucie who is not only caught in the middle of the generations but also the family itself. Through all of this, the one thing that does not change is the movie's interest in memory and how it is recalled, not remembered.(Speaking of which, I had forgotten all about Charter 77.) And in the end, no matter how perfect or evil we may think a person is, the truth is that much more complicated. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Kawasaki's Rose

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis A famed dissident is accused of collaborating with the government by turning a friend in.
Director
Jan Hrebejk
Producer
Rudolf Biermann, Tomás Hoffman
Screenwriter
Petr Jarchovský
Genre
Drama
Original Language
Czech
Runtime
1h 40m