Writer: David Jařab
Director: Viktor Tauš
Viktor Tauš’ absurdist and surrealist film is a tale of a single orphanage in Soviet era Czechoslovakia and its aftermath, becoming an obsession for one woman who spent a lot of her childhood there. A striking if often baffling visual approach, Amerikánka (Girl America) is an obsession with freedom represented in the idea of the United States and the hope the central character retains that she will one day travel there and somehow recover all the personal losses that punctuate her young and deeply eventful life.
When their mother disappears, Ema is taken into the local orphanage run by a Miss Hannigan-style manager who treats the children cruelly. Losing touch with both of her brothers, Ema struggles to ground herself in this world and, as she moves through life to a new foster family and as an adult, she cannot make connections with others, thinking only of getting to America. But all roads lead her back to the orphanage.
Visually Amerikánka is unrestrained, bonkers even, mixing social realism with big set pieces and bold saturated colours that define the chapters of Ema’s life, from the vibrant purple beloved by the orphanage manager that covers all of the scenic and costume choices to the electric blue segment when the teenagers in a juvenile detention facility are sifting dirty and eventually adult Ema’s postbox red plastic squelchy outfit when she returns to the building years later. The palette is both wild and carefully defined which makes the story more watchable and will look compelling on the big screen.
The film itself though is packed with digressions and elaborate ideas that don’t fully translate to the audience and sometimes distract from the narrative. Occasionally the desire to be strange and obscure overcomes directiveness and purpose in the film, and while this has a very European sensibility, particularly in the phased representation of political events as Czechoslovakia is freed from its oppressive rule, it often overwhelms characterisation and meaning for the viewer. It also begins to feel indulgent, pushing the film’s running time up to nearly 110-minutes, the allegory not quite strong enough to sustain momentum.
But there is a standout performance from Klára Kitto as the youngest version of Ema who largely carries the film, revealing the pain and fear of being abandoned and how it marks her, returning again and again to anchor the story. There is also great work from Pavla Beretová as the haunted adult seeing shadows in every corner of the orphanage and from Klára Melíšková as the evil manager who plays her across two eras, revealing both the culture of danger she created for her charges but also the false impression of devotion she implies to adults.
It is a film with a purpose and desire to commemorate a difficult period of history, and the uniquely dark experience of the orphanage, but it is ultimately too obscure in translating that to the viewer and in drawing the contrasts between the illusion of American freedom and the world this little girl really knew.
Amerikánka (Girl America) is screening at the 29th Made in Prague Festival 2025.
