Birkbeck Cinema, Saturday 24th November 2018: 14:00 – 20:00
Free entrance, book your tickets here.
Burning Bush
Agnieszka Holland, Czech Republic, 2013, 84/72/78 minutes
Saturday 24 November 2.00 pm
Presenter: Sarah Marks (Birkbeck)
Fifty years ago Soviet forces invaded Czechoslovakia to put an end to the Prague Spring’s attempt to liberalize communist rule. On 16 January 1969, Jan Palach, a history student, went to Wenceslas Square, dowsed himself in petrol, and set himself alight. He died three days later. He left a letter explaining that he was one of a group who were going kill themselves one by one in protest against the Soviet occupation until their demands were met. The Polish director Agnieszka Holland was a student in Prague at the time. Her three-part series starts with Palach’s immolation. It exploits the breadth of its canvas to develop complexity. Palach’s act has different ramifications for each of the characters. Was he a national hero? Or was he insane? The meaning of his act is at issue in the trial that dominates the third part of Burning Bush. Palach’s was an act of heroic simplicity. Holland’s series is sympathetic to those who sacrificed themselves (for others followed his example). But it also shows a complex world, fascinated by such grand gestures, yet in some ways at odds with them.