It is very easy to say about film it is pretentious - generally, it is used by folks who are unable to properly describe what is wrong with the film. But the term suits this movie so well that it must be used. Actually, the film achieves to become icon of this term.
What we've got here is very naive representation of some poem-wannabe who is almost constantly vomiting abundance of completely silly poems, which might be interesting for few minutes, but definitely not for two hours. Things get double-worse once he meet crazy girl, who is like his clone, except it is female. From now on, they live together, arguing most of the time, to present some "disturbing drama". Needless to say, they fail achieving so. I haven't cared a single bit about their pitiful romance, and wish them slow and painful death - and that means something went very wrong with narration. Dramaturgist has apparently gone fishing.
Characters are not worked out, we see 'em only through scope of their bad poetry and nonconformist behavior (e.g. screaming stupidities out of the window...) Clearly, director knows nothing about theme which he is clumsily trying to present.
But dumb and badly portrayed characters could be swallowed, if there would be story behind it - but there is none. All we'll get is display of communist Czechoslovakia atmosphere, BUT, who the hell cares? It was done dozen times better dozen times before. This movie brings nothing new to the table, except endless boredom.
What surprises me how well is this Czech film accepted here in Czech Republic. I assume it is due to non-existent competition, so anything what looks bit like Hollywood is way to success. So, Tomas Masin knowing this, took some poems, beautiful romantic super-cool constantly-smoking hero, sew it together, and on the background painted some nasty-nasty communist regime as antagonist. Et Voila! Blockbuster was born. This is exactly the way how to not do films.
Long story short, skip this movie. If you want to really see film about communist Czechoslovakia, check out another Czech flick "Pelisky (Cosy Dens - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167331/) or "Musime si pomahat (Divided We Fall - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234288/). Those are the films Czech people can be proud about, as opposed to just plain ungood 3 seasons in hell.
What we've got here is very naive representation of some poem-wannabe who is almost constantly vomiting abundance of completely silly poems, which might be interesting for few minutes, but definitely not for two hours. Things get double-worse once he meet crazy girl, who is like his clone, except it is female. From now on, they live together, arguing most of the time, to present some "disturbing drama". Needless to say, they fail achieving so. I haven't cared a single bit about their pitiful romance, and wish them slow and painful death - and that means something went very wrong with narration. Dramaturgist has apparently gone fishing.
Characters are not worked out, we see 'em only through scope of their bad poetry and nonconformist behavior (e.g. screaming stupidities out of the window...) Clearly, director knows nothing about theme which he is clumsily trying to present.
But dumb and badly portrayed characters could be swallowed, if there would be story behind it - but there is none. All we'll get is display of communist Czechoslovakia atmosphere, BUT, who the hell cares? It was done dozen times better dozen times before. This movie brings nothing new to the table, except endless boredom.
What surprises me how well is this Czech film accepted here in Czech Republic. I assume it is due to non-existent competition, so anything what looks bit like Hollywood is way to success. So, Tomas Masin knowing this, took some poems, beautiful romantic super-cool constantly-smoking hero, sew it together, and on the background painted some nasty-nasty communist regime as antagonist. Et Voila! Blockbuster was born. This is exactly the way how to not do films.
Long story short, skip this movie. If you want to really see film about communist Czechoslovakia, check out another Czech flick "Pelisky (Cosy Dens - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167331/) or "Musime si pomahat (Divided We Fall - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234288/). Those are the films Czech people can be proud about, as opposed to just plain ungood 3 seasons in hell.