Writers: Mariana Cengel-Solcanská and Hana Lasicová
Director: Mariana Cengel-Solcanská
Reminiscent of the historical fiction of lesbian icon Sarah Waters, The Chambermaid, a Slovakian/Czech production, is a romantic queer period drama set at the turn of the First World War. When country girl Anka begins working for a rich German family living in Prague, she catches the eye of her mistress’s daughter who is just about to be married off to a neighbour. Mariana Cengel-Solcanská’s film is an accomplished study of lesbian desire and which is unafraid to look at every use of the body.
Anka (Dana Droppová) grows up knowing that she is illegitimate. She also knows what sex is. Her mother’s new husband had no qualms in having sex with his wife when the teenage Anka was still awake. But despite this knowledge she is unprepared for the sexual desires that run riot in her new home in the city. Her roommate, Liza, is having an affair with the master of the house while a male employee invites Anka to pay him a visit one night. Meanwhile the cook seems determined to remain a virgin.
Anka’s first days in the house aren’t good ones, especially when the family’s daughter Resi (a cruel Radka Calová) abuses her power and forces her new maid to strip. But slowly over the next few weeks they become closer and one day when Resi catches Anka waltzing alone on the servants’ stairs she invites her maid to dance with her instead. The music swirls and swells and their waltz on the stairs is a lovely moment in their flourishing relationship.
But Resi’s wedding goes ahead as planned. The night before the ceremony Resi asks Anka what sex will feel like. Anka has no idea, but decides to make a midnight call to the randy groom. In one of the film’s many funny moments, he comes in less than a minute giving Anka a false impression of heterosexual sex. Anka rushes back to tell Resi that she shouldn’t worry, that intercourse will be bearable.
While the Upstairs Downstairs romance of Resi and Anka is now a familiar trope after such works as Waters’ Fingersmith and BBC’s Gentleman Jack, Cengel-Solcanská’s film is startling in its depictions of the body. We see shit and piss in the chamber pots that Anka has to pour into the drains of the busy streets outside the house. We see the master of the house sat on his commode. We see the blood of an abortion and we see menstrual blood on sheets and we learn how difficult it is to remove such stains. There are no private lives here. As the cook tells Anka, the employers have no secrets as their servants know everything about them.
One of the most famous texts about cross-class desire is, of course, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and D. H. Lawrence’s influence can be seen in The Chambermaid when Resi’s husband comes back from the front missing a leg and an eye. The camera lingers on the space where his eye once was, adding one more visceral layer in a film that delights in every aspect of the body.
While the romance blossoms between the two women, there are rumours that the new Hapsburg Emperor will exile all Germans from Prague, thus separating the women. It’s a shame that these politics are kept to a minimum as they provide a gripping background to Anka and Resi’s story. Perhaps more information is conveyed through newspaper headlines but these are not translated by the subtitles.
As the war comes to an end, the film rushes through developments at an uncomfortable speed, and it somewhat spoils the stately space that comes before. We don’t even have time to appreciate that The Chambermaid is based on a true story before the credits roll. But despite this hurried conclusion, Cengel-Solcanská’s examination of class and domestic servitude will certainly please British audiences.
The Chambermaid is screening at BFI Flare 2023 from 15-26 March.
