If you imagine Sabrina the Teenage Witch with a dash of Harry Potter thrown in, you’ll get a pretty good idea what to expect from this bright and breezy fantasy comedy. Petra Černocká plays Saxana, a talented but bored young witch who is sentenced to 300 years in detention for screwing up in her shape-shifting classes. With the assistance of the school janitor and retired vampire, (I’m not sure vampirism works like that either, but let’s go with it), Saxana transforms herself into an owl and visits the world of people.
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The spell is shortlived, though, and unless she can find something called “Hag’s Ear” within 44 hours, she will have to return to witch school and face the consequences for her bad behaviour. While still in owl form, she’s captured by a zookeeper and taken home. There she reverts to her normal form, much to the surprise of the keeper’s son, Honza (Jan Hrušínský). They quickly become friends, setting the stage for all manner of magical shenanigans – usually involving Saxana turning herself or other people into some kind of animal…
The Girl on a Broomstick is endearingly cheerful throughout and Černocká, a singer who also provided the ridiculously catchy theme tune, is an appealing lead. She plays Saxana with the right mix of wide-eyed innocence and sassiness, and her performance has dated better than some of the others. Otherwise, much of the acting is pretty panto-level stuff, especially among Saxana’s classmates and teachers at school. Helena Ruzicková (The Slunce, Seno… trilogy) has a cameo as Saxana’s roommate during her brief stay on a psychiatric ward.
The film zips along and the special effects, while primitive, are used effectively and with gusto. Although dated and very lo-fi, The Girl on a Broomstick is still capable of casting a happy spell over kids and their parents, so it’s a great pick for families with young children learning Czech. My four-year-old daughter loved it, and I won’t be terribly put out by having to watch it again with her.
A belated and poorly received sequel, Saxána a Lexikon kouzel (Little Witch on a Broomstick), arrived in 2011.
Czech Film Review 