Leaving

“Václav Havel conceived of a variation on King Lear in a milder Chekhovian tonality in 1987. At the end of the 1980s he made copious notes and early drafts of dialogues but for a time believed they had fallen victim to the revolutionary chaos.”
(Michael Žantovský: Havel, Atlantic Books 2014)

“The subject matter, meaning the story of someone who holds high office and who steps down from that post, came into existence a very long time ago and is not connected to my experiences of the last 17 years. Nevertheless, I don’t hide the fact that that presidential spell provided me with all sorts of inspiration, all sorts of motifs, that I later drew on in the play. That’s understandable to say the least and natural to say the least. The play is simply about a ruler who has ceased to rule; we don’t know whether he has been deposed in a coup, whether his mandate has expired, or whether he failed to win confidence in parliament. How it happened isn’t important. He has to move out of his state villa and naturally the court surrounding him begins to crumble and now, as in every court, the archetypes of the sycophant, the traitor and such like start to appear there.”
(Václav Havel – Press conference on the publication of the play Leaving, 7.11.2007)

The play Leaving had its world premiere at Prague’s Archa Theatre on 22 May 2008.

David Radok took the helm as director while Jan Tříska, Zuzana Stivínová, Vlasta Chramostová, Ivan Řezáč, Bořivoj Navrátil, Jan Skopeček, Ján Sedal and others appeared in the main roles. The production received the 2008 Alfréd Radok Award in the Czech Play category.

Shortly after the launch of the theatre play the director Jaroslav Brabec proposed adapting Leaving into a film; however, this never occurred due to differences in vision between the playwright and the prospective director. Václav Havel then further explored the possibility of Leaving being filmed, this time in cooperation with the director Jan Němec. In the end he arrived at the decision to direct his work himself.

“So after lengthy hesitation I am getting into film only at the close of my public career, as it were. I would like – actually for the first time in my life – to interpret my own dramatic material myself. I have a rather specific vision for the planned film, I have an appetite for the work, I have good collaborators and excellent actors have been cast in the film. I want to turn my relative inexperience into a positive: This will make it easier, I hope, to avoid various habits, clichés and conventions.”
(Václav Havel – Press conference on the publication of the play Leaving, 7.11.2007)

The actual shoot was preceded by the scouting of locations for the film Leaving.

“When I was scouting I mainly went according to the screenplay and consultations with the director regarding the overall layout of the space. The most important thing was to have a dominant entrance from the villa onto the garden, which was to be well-tended and rather large. At the same time, it was necessary that the villa be of sufficient size that its designation as ‘government villa’ would be credible. In addition the director requested distinctive steps descending from the villa to the garden; they were to be almost theatrical in character.”
(scenographer and architect Ondřej Nekvasil – Vila Čerych. Česká Skalice: Centrum rozvoje Česká Skalice 2012)

To avoid the mechanical conversion of a theatre production into the genre of film, Václav Havel decided to select a different cast. His concern was the after so many performances the actors had become fixated on a certain way of interpreting their roles. This decision also enabled him to return to his original vision with regard to the casting of some parts.

As a first-time director Václav Havel surrounded himself on the shoot with a team of professionals, including producer Jaroslav Bouček, cinematographer Jan Malíř, first assistant director Jiří Kačírea, editor Jiří Brožek, scenographer Jan Nekvasil and costume designer Zuzana Ježková. Shooting on Leaving got underway on 1 July 2010 and ran for almost two months.

Václav Havel regarded the filming of the circle dance as the toughest moment in the entire shoot. A night scene that represents the vision or ravings of Dr. Rieger, it can also be understood as a kind of kink in the play. The characters first repeat the lines of other characters before dancing wildly on the surface of the pool as elements of their costumes change. Václav Havel brought in the leading choreographer Jiří Kylián as an advisor on the scene.

The scene is accompanied by a rock version of Ode to Joy which, like the whole soundtrack of the film, is the work of the composer and guitarist Michal Pavlíček. The English translation is by Michael Žantovský.

Leaving got a mixed reaction from viewers and film critics.

“The fact that viewers and reviewers haven’t been able to accept the film, or at least have considerable problems with it, may perhaps be linked to the fact that Václav Havel controls virtually everything in it, meaning viewers don’t have a positive hero with whom they can identify and experience the twists in the struggle for political and moral identity alongside. (…) If viewers can’t identify with a character, they can’t accept the film without relating to themselves all of the doubts and problems of the central character and the main theme of the work, or without identifying with the viewpoint of the author.”
(Jan Bernard: Odcházení. Kino-Ikon 2011)

The film version of Leaving still managed to receive 12 nominations for Czech Lion awards, which is the maximum that one film can receive. In the end the adaptation picked up two Czech Lions: Best Screenplay for Václav Havel and Best Editing for Jiří Brožek.