Beata Parkanová, the filmmaker behind Moments, returns to Karlovy Vary with an exceptionally vivid portrait of the family of notary Václav Vojíř, a small-town moral authority, and his selfless wife Věra. This masterfully told and highly original intimate drama, whose protagonists undergo a difficult ordeal in the summer of 1968, is reinforced by finely wrought, exquisite performances from Martin Finger and Gabriela Mikulková.
Petr is a courier, a messenger as a matter of fact. He is one of those young men who believe that on their bikes they have become part and parcel of the atmosphere of modern cities. He is a non-conformist who refuses to settle into today‘s deformed society, he abhors its indolence, consumerism and lies, as well as its pseudo-truths, pseudo-feelings, pseudo-loves and pseudo-values. Petr’s untrammelled personality keeps causing more and more serious problems. And Petr is also one of those who will never admit to themselves that they might be at the end of their tether.
Adolescence is always a difficult time; it is doubly so for Gábina. For one thing, she is growing up in the normalization years of the 1970s, and then she also has to face the reality that her father is a well-known actor disavowed by the regime. Although he abandoned the family years before, his existence casts an ominous shadow over the lives of not only Gábina, but also her older sister and mother, who are trying to find a civilized way through the social mire of the times.
