The true tale of Honzo from Smetana Lhota will impress and tire you

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Sagvan Tofi greets Jaromír Jágr, Radoslav Kováč’s family floats by, you won’t miss Jiří Jarošík, biathlon champion Gabriela Soukalova, Jiří Novotný arrives with director Vojtěch Nouzák, there are Mr. Suchopárek, Horňák, Ulich, Jarabinský, Beránek… And here are the relatives and friends of the main protagonists from Smetana Lhota.

The centerpiece of Wednesday’s festive premiere in Slovanské dům is a two-meter-tall guy, about whom the film Jan Koller – the story of an ordinary boy was made. Yesterday, as today, his person connects the world of ordinary people, who prefer to relax by the fire, where they warm up a steak, with the world of bon vivants, models and the most expensive brands of champagne.

Football is like a mouse hole, a shortcut to jump between these worlds. After all, every successful footballer writes a story about a boy who, thanks to talent and hard work, found happiness.

But Koller’s story is even more unique. As a boy, he basically didn’t even know how to play football. “I didn’t really like him as a football player,” even his coach Petr Koller says in the film.

But then a chain of events started, which by a special twist of fate directs the boy from the village to Sparta Prague, where he is suddenly sitting in a cabin with, for example, Pavel Nedvěd, then to Belgium, where he actually learns to play football in Lokeren.

And the football elevator takes him higher, to Anderlecht, to Borussia Dortmund, to the national team, to the World and European Championships… And from the elephant house, which many laughed at, he suddenly becomes a living legend of Czech football, a record holder in the number of goals scored. But still a nice, unsneaky and smiling boy from the village.

Koller’s life story intersects with fairy tales How Honza from Smetana Lhota came to happiness in the world with the one About the ugly duckling that turned into an elegant swan. “This is for a movie for Hollywood,” Pavel Nedvěd often said.

And the director Petr Větrovský took hold of the theme and filmed it. “Jarda Jágr told me about it: Honza Koller’s story is better than mine. Most importantly, don’t..r,” confided the director of the film before the premiere.

He made a feature-length documentary in which Jan Koller revisits the places he passed through in his career. And together with the people he met there then and today, he tells his extraordinary story.

After Smetana’s Lhota, he drives a tractor, and arrives in Sparta again in a suffocating Škoda 105, with which years ago they didn’t even want to let him into the club parking lot. Then he happily drives around Monaco on a rentier’s scooter.

He tells about moments of happiness, but also of the deepest ruin, when a bunch of Spartan greasers conspired against him. Or when his girlfriend at the time told him that she would not go to Lokeren to see him. “I never saw her again after that…”

Whether you’re a football fan or not, at least the first half hour of the movie is sure to grab your heart. You will be introduced to it by a shy young man not unlike František Koudelka from STS Chvojkovice-Brod and his summer chapter about a radiant comet that was knocked out of the sky by competition threatened by its brilliance.

The anti-hero disappears into exile, where his superpowers are tuned to their maximum and he returns to the scene as a super hero. No, this is not comic book nonsense, this is also a living part of Jan Koller’s story.

People who didn’t believe him, who hurt him, parade in it. Even those without whose help his life path would not have progressed. Mr. Tichý, who once did his best to get Koller to the Spartan B’s training. Or Willy Reynders, who in Lokeren gave Koller incredible individual care and fundamentally improved his movement coordination and kicking technique.

And simsalabim… The super scorer for Anderlecht, Dortmund or the Czech national team was done.

Talking heads are constantly paraded on the screen in front of us, alternating with shots of goals and game situations… And what is fun at the beginning, after all, becomes tiring over time.

Větrovský et al. decided to honestly tell all the chapters of Koller’s life, including Nuremberg, Samara, the not entirely happy idea of ​​returning to the national team… And here the imaginary chain of the film falls completely. And frankly, you’re kind of waiting for it to be over.

One hundred and twelve minutes seems like a really long footage for this way of telling, which doesn’t progress, on the contrary. Better dramaturgy would benefit the film in this sense.

A trained documentary director would certainly have captured many elements more authentically. When, for example, Jan Koller and her daughters decorate the Christmas tree, you feel that they are actually playing a little show in front of the camera.

And these are, admittedly, details that will probably not win the film about Jan Koller the Palme d’Or from Cannes. However, that’s still no reason why you shouldn’t go see the film about Jan Koller.

As football fans who remember his football career, or the younger ones who want to know it, really go to the movie. And take your wife or girlfriend with you, they might appreciate the story of how a nice guy from the village moved among the lions of the salons, without ceasing to be himself, more than the loops and goals.

Director Petr Větrovský, former director of the Příbram football club, is after all a bit more of a marketer and promoter than an artist. But he made the film about the honest man Jan Koller honestly.

The film is set to hit Netflix and is expected to be screened in Westphalian cinemas, where it could appeal to Borussia Dortmund fans. And also in Belgium, where Koller became the idol of Lokeren and Anderlecht.

If you consider yourself a fan of the Czech national football team, go to it too. Jan Koller will not disappoint you. Neither on the field nor on the screen.