Klára Tasovská’s inventive documentary I’m Not Everything I Want to Be chronicles the life of photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková as she tries to become who she wants to be amidst oppression.
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At the heart of Klára Tasovská’s decades-spanning documentary portrait of Czech photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, is a simple but elusive existential question: How do you become “everything [you] want to be” amidst political and capitalistic oppression? It isn’t easy, but bit by bit, Jarcovjáková finds herself in this thoughtful, heartrending film. Her work as a photographer has only recently been recognized internationally. Tasovská’s film is formally ambitious and accomplished — creative nonfiction at its best. She crafts a dynamic narrative through clever sound and pacing despite being built solely on still photographs.
Photographic montages showcase the photos and fit Jarcovjáková’s aesthetic style
Told through a montage of still photographs from Jarcovjáková’s archive set to narration pulled from Jarcovjáková’s diaries, the film recounts Jarcovjáková’s personal and political struggles of being an artist and a queer woman in 1960s normalization-era Czechoslovakia, in Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s, and in West Berlin before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, from the 1980s to 1990s. The film’s use of sound and montage is similar to how animated documentaries (I delved deep into animated documentaries in our ebook Subjective Realities), wherein Tasovská effectively animates the photographs from Jarcovjáková’s archives in how she paces the montage and by adding an immersive sound design to the narration.
Taskovská describes Jarcovjáková’s photographs as having a comic strip quality. They capture a series of moments to tell a story of a particular event. That could be a conversation between friends on a night out, a series of Jarcovjáková’s husband’s reaction shots when she tells him they’re divorcing, or self-portraits as Jacovjáková copes with getting an abortion (twice). Jarcovjákova also has a knack for capturing images in motion: people about to speak, people moving, a train arriving. It means each still image invites us to imagine the action leading up to it and where what we see in the photograph will lead after. It makes Jarcovjáková’s photographs ideal building blocks for montage.
Klára Tasovská cleverly uses sound and editing to bring the documentary I’m Not Everything I Want to Be to life
Working with editor Alexander Kascheev, Tasovská brilliantly plays with the rhythms of a series of photographs to create tension, movement, and story. They bring us into Jarcovjáková’s night out at a club by creating a strobe effect in the photographic montage of this event. Speeding up the successions of images creates moments of excitement, like Jarcovjáková’s first trip to Tokyo and out of Prague. The more images there are of a particular event, the more emotionally connected we feel. A series of images of a man looking right at Jarcovjákova’s camera feels like a flirtation, a series of stolen glances, and he will soon become her lover. By contrast, when Jarcovjáková is alone, contemplative, or depressed, the images slow down just as her feelings slow down.
Sound in documentary is an oft-overlooked and neglected art, but I’m Not Everything I Want to Be feels like an archival motion picture because of the rich and detailed sound design by Alexander Kascheev and Michaela Patriková. When Jarkovjákova takes a back-breaking job at a printing factory, we feel like we’re in the factory because we can hear the loud sounds of the machines working. We hear the torrential downpour when we see a photograph of a street amidst pouring rain. We believe we’re watching a tram in motion at night because we can hear it chugging and screeching. It serves as an establishing shot before Taskovská cuts to Jarcovjákova’s images of people on the streets at night, where we can still hear the sounds of the unseen tram and cars and honks. The film’s sound and editing give the illusion of a living object: the past comes to life.
A life in transition: a documentary about Libuše Jarcovjáková
Jarcovjáková spent her life searching for something elusive: home, belonging, emotional support, artistic freedom and expression. Her photographs, and thus Tasovská’s film, are full of moments of transition and liminality. During Jarcovjáková’s travels, we see montages of the view out the window of a train or car, creating a sense of motion through space.
Jarcovjáková captures decisive moments before and after key events happen: her body before and after having an abortion, her new home in a foreign country, and her interaction with a new friend or lover. She inhabits cramped and basic apartments, but they are her own, however imperfect. There’s a series of striking images of Jarcovjàkovà’s legs in the air as she lies on the floor of her apartment, looking at the beam of light passing through the window. Ultimately, I’m Not Everything I Want to Be is about a life and an artist in progress, forever working toward the elusive goal of “everything I want to be.”
Related reading/listening to Klára Tasovská’s film I’m Not Everything I Want to Be
More Creative Nonfiction:
More LGBTQ films: Read our Special Issue on Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011) for its 10th anniversary. Listen to our podcast on Weekend and End of the Century and our podcast on Looking HBO. Read all of our LGBTQ film coverage.
More highlights from the Berlinale’s Panorama section: Read our interviews with the filmmakers behind North by Current (2021), Miguel’s War (2021), Night Raiders (2021), and Brother’s Keeper (2021). Read our reviews of Brother’s Keeper (2021) and Just Like Our Parents (2017). Listen to our podcasts featuring Panorama highlights like Lullaby (2022) and Oscar-nominee The Teachers’ Lounge (2023).
More from Berlinale 2024: Read all of our Berlinale coverage.
