Servants

DVD Features

Bonus Short Film

A Good Story
Directed by Martin-Christopher Bode
Germany
German with English subtitles
20 minutes

A woman offers to pay an exorbitant amount for a beat up old jug in an antique store but the owner says he will only part with it if she tells him a good story about herself.

Sound: 2.0 Stereo

Discs: 1

• Highest Rating
  "[A] brilliantly crafted, atmospherically enveloping seminary drama."
  Guy Lodge, Variety
• Highest Rating
  "Ostrochovsky delivers a series of striking visual images, often from unusual overhead angles. Starting with the very first shot — which follows a car driving a forlorn road at night — his bold, confident strokes accumulate into a sharp portrait of restrained, stylish and brooding power."
  Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter
• Highest Rating
  "Servants is set in 1980, in the thick of communist Czechoslovakia during the Cold War era; however Ivan Ostrochovsky’s insidiously flinty, supremely assured and chillingly stylish second feature spins a story which is of utmost relevance today. [T]his is an unsettling rebuke of government control and ideological manipulation — as well as a sharp cry against compliance with the prevailing status quo."
  Sarah Ward, Screen Daily
• Highest Rating
  "Critic's Pick! Captivating...“Servants” pairs chilly black-and-white imagery, reminiscent of films by Robert Bresson, with an austere kind of choreography: Ostrochovsky often begins shots with characters frozen in place for several seconds before they launch into action, as if they were chess pieces moved by God across the bare lines of the seminary’s crumbling stone architecture. "
  Natalia Winkelman, The New York Times
• Highest Rating
  "[A]n impressionistic work of sharp beauty and cutting political insight."
  Redmond Bacon, Cultured Vultures
• Highest Rating
  "[A] period piece which often takes on shades of a film noir. Poetically photographed and tinged by dueling metaphors of the sacred and profane...."
  Nicholas Bell, Ion Cinema
• Highest Rating
  "This is an austere and laudable drama enhanced by its stunning visual allure.... Servants is true to the spirit of Bresson...."
  Meredith Taylor, Filmuforia
• Highest Rating
  "the most impressive thing about Servants is how Ostrochovský has managed to sustain the unrelenting tension and uncertainty throughout...."
  Vladan Petkovic, Cineuropa
• Highest Rating
  "[I]mpressive, filled with striking cinematography ...."
  Daniel Lammin, Makes the Switch
• Highest Rating
  "A film that jitters and shivers with anti-authoritarian sentiment beneath its serene monochrome aesthetic."
  Guy Lodge, Variety
• Highest Rating
  "[D]irector Ivan Ostrochovský’s stylish political thriller, co-written with Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Marek Lescák, plays like a film noir, with its high-contrast monochrome cinematography...."
  Simran Hans, The Observer
• Highest Rating
  "Pure evil permeates this brief, 80-minute film, whose cold visual brilliance reminds me of the recent movies of Paweł Pawlikowski."
  Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
• Highest Rating
  "Strikingly shot in black and white, this Soviet-era drama from Slovakia has an eerily timeless quality to it. Filmmaker Ivan Ostrochovsky captures scenes in a beautiful documentary style, taking a bold approach to the pungent idea that it's easier to give in than to take a stand. The film's sometimes austere tone is cleverly maintained, offering glimpses of earthy real life that make the story darkly engaging."
  Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall
• Highest Rating
  "This film is a striking mixture of a foreboding, almost dreamlike tone with the offhand."
  Andrew Plimpton, Film Forward