The last film of the Czech cinema cycle as well as the most strange and beautifully poignant one. Also, the least Czech of them all. It focuses on a few weeks from the life of Petr (Jirí Mádl), a young-ish theatre director in a small Czech town (could have been any small town anywhere) staging Fedra by Unamuno (could have been any play). The lead-up to the casting of Karolina (Elizaveta Maximová) is probably the best part of the movie. While Petr’s affair with Karolina is very much predictable, the rest of the film is not. Now I can’t say that Petr is any more machista than the male protagonists of, say, Tiger Theory or National Street: all fail to understand that women — o horror — can have plans on their own. Nevertheless, for a theatre director, or a human being, Petr’s complete lack of sense of humour is simply unforgivable.
Black and white cinematography by Inti Briones makes the story both credible and universal. Thoughtful direction by Alejandro Fernández and music score by Pablo Vergara makes me wish to watch the other films of this team.
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