Ten short episodes of less than 15 minutes that all begin with this famous very alcoholic evening where young Czechs celebrate their baccalaureate. Tereza loves women, but Pavlina doesn't want her. Intoxicated, she consoles herself that evening with David. With each new opus, we know a little more about this night which, for her, will be experienced as a rape, and for him, as a consensual act.
When five years later, while going to an editor to offer her an essay, the young journalism student bumps into this one-night stand, and she remembers. Like a shattering mirror. The emotions are so strong that she will confide for the first time to this woman who asks her to write about this rape. And more precisely on the grey area of consent, the one that allows slippage...
"Five Years" manages to seize an ultra-sensitive subject without any misstep and avoiding clichés. By interweaving temporalities and points of view, by playing on the two "truths", the series is overwhelming. Some scenes are really very strong like the meeting, five years after the tragedy, between the two young actors. "You raped me, you committed a crime," she tells him. "Are you serious? I broke your heart and you resent me," he retorts.
The importance of free speech after trauma
Carried by formidable actors and in particular the two young heroes, Alžběta Malá and Samuel Toman, the series tackles with great accuracy and emotion all the ambiguities of consent. Without manichaeism or complacency, she deciphers the consequences of this night on the life of Tereza who, for five years, survives. Without any lesson in morality, bias, she also places herself on the side of David and his sincere misunderstanding.
The fiction also tries to explain that after such a trauma, it is important to free speech. To take back control of one's own history to rebuild oneself. Tereza, who will try to exorcise her trauma through writing, will find herself in spite of herself, embedded in a media machine that she did not want. Vultures are watching, but resilience is much stronger. "Five Years" is a new nugget from Arte that shakes up our prejudices.
The trailer of "Five Years"
Editor's note:
4/5
"Five Years", Czech series by Sara Zeithammerova and Damian Vondrasek, with Alžběta Malá, Samuel Toman... 10 episodes of 12 minutes. On the Arte.tv platform
