Probably no other Czech silent film received such international acclaim as Gustav Machatý’s 1929 film, Erotikon. Besides the commercial calculation evident in the film’s cosmopolitan title, this can also be attributed to its successful direction. Machatý was well acquainted with modernist trends in world cinema, and he managed to transform the relatively banal theme of Vítězslav Nezval’s story into a dynamic, visually rich melodrama that is as lyrical as it is sensual. In addition to the significant details, careful compositions and provocative visual metaphors of cinematographer Václav Vích, the film’s appeal is enhanced by its international cast. Machatý cast Slovenian model and actress Ita Rina in the lead role of a country girl who is seduced and abandoned by an unscrupulous city dandy. Rina appeared a year later in Karel Anton’s social drama, Tonka Šibenice (Tonka of the Gallows). Erotikon, whose style and theme foreshadows Machatý’s scandalous Extase (Ecstasy), was screened for the first time at a semi-private event in Prague on 27 February 1929. In July the same year, Erotikon entered wider cinematic distribution, with several shots removed due to censorship. Representatives of the distributors, Slaviafilm, had anticipated that the film’s positive reception in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and other countries where the film had been sold would increase the curiosity and anticipation of the domestic audience. Instead, sound films took centre stage and attracted most of the attention. Despite rave reviews, there was a lukewarm audience response to Machatý’s silent melodrama within Czechoslovakia. Even the addition of sound three years after the premiere did not bring the film into the spotlight. The film was restored by the Národní filmový archiv for the first time in the early 1990s. For the actual digital restoration the Národní filmový archiv undertook extensive research and used elements from various European archives in order to get as close as possible to the uncensored February 1929 version of Erotikon.

Martin Šrajer