Šeptej

What? In the end, all I have to do is look at the director's name and I understand. From my point of view, Ondříček filmed stories about aliens, not people. From my point of view, Ondříček filmed a psychological study in which a dog has the deepest psychology. They say that it’s a generational confession... I don't know, maybe this film had something to say in the beginning, but in its "total" openness, it's so desperately superficial... All these fundamental themes are so pompous that their fundamentality fades into the gaudy-colored universe of the main characters. I don't like Ondříček's jovial style, his flat characters and his view of the present. He's fundamentally alien to me. I don't like Colorfactory’s music. It's so pushy and shallow. And I don't like Muchow... So that's why I'm giving it this rating. (06.03.2004)

"Don't come closer, punk! One more step and I'll jump!" "I'm already standing." "But I'm gonna jump anyway, so piss off!" Upon the first encounter with the economically intimate acting of Jan Čechtický, joyfully singing in his car while frantically turning the steering wheel on a straight road, I thought to myself that this movie is going to be a blast. The subsequent dialogue studies among the playback non-actors, which seem as if random bits of conversation were cut out, puzzled me whether it's a (self-)conscious update of parrot-like and Forman-style conscious awkwardness, a legacy of cellar-like caricatureness, or just a poorly written and poorly acted student script. Nobody ever spoke or behaved like the characters here or in Vorl's Smoke, yet both films possess a strange aura of raw authenticity that is recognized more by subconsciousness than consciousness. Consciously, one cannot help but occasionally enjoy the exaggeration and self-importance of everyone and everything, but subconsciously, it awakens some seeded memories of how we exactly imagined Prague life in our teenage years. In a club with orange walls, where everyone looks wasted, sipping juice and isostar, abandoned girls wander the streets, crashing at friends' apartments, all somewhat artists, believing in UFOs, grabbing pizza at Kmotra, and on a night stroll around Kotva, you notice a digital sign announcing the opening of a new video rental store on the 4th floor. From a personal perspective, the film has a peculiar naive innocence. I completely forgot what we were like back then. (01.04.2024)

At the time of its premiere, this Czech phenomenon must have felt like a slap in the face and an awakening for part of one generation. So many years later, however, we have seen a lot more in film, so it has no chance of shocking or opening eyes, only of captivating with its soundtrack and atmosphere. (18.06.2011)