Snake Oil Huckster, or the Real Deal?

A brief commentary of this month’s film selection, “CHARLATAN”
A Film by Agnieszka Holland

Review by John Bennison, Mountain Shadow Director

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” - John 15:13

Human history is replete with individuals who rise above the lowing herd to distinguish themselves in the public’s eye as extraordinary or exceptional in some special way. This could include a political orator with a gifted tongue, a charismatic preacher with a religious zeal, a scientific genius, or other-worldly mystic.

But while the question of such a person’s full identity can remain an incomplete mystery, the question that often lingers for any skeptic with a critical eye is whether or not the public figure is the real deal? For, as we’ve been reminded all too well in recent years, there’s always the political huckster and snake oil salesman who’s always lingering in the shadows; all too eager to charm and delude us.

Jan Mikolášek was a historical figure completely unbeknownst to this reviewer, until viewing Agnieszka Holland’s film, CHARLATAN at a film festival last year. But as she depicts so well in the film and her filmmaker’s statement included in our playbill, he was a strange and mysterious force to be reckoned with during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia; and subsequently during the Stalinist era.

More intriguing still was Mikolášek’s personal life and intimate secret. There is a line from Christian scripture that reads, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Mikolášek’s story is ultimately a tragic drama, as a result of the choice he makes to discard the offered sacrifices of the heart; despite his almost miraculous capacity to diagnose and cure the body. jb