Loners

Colour, 35mm
Czech Republic, Slovenia, 2000, 104 min
Section: Czech Films
Oficiální stránky: www.samotari.cz

Synopsis

Seven young people live through experiences over the course of several days that radically change their future lives. Petr, a DJ at a small Prague radio station, breaks up with Hanka, his girlfriend of two years. A neurotic Doctor named Ondřej wants Hanka for himself and has already been hounding her rather obtrusively for a long time. Ondřej’s wife Lenka, however, refuses to admit that the father of her children could possibly betray their neat little life. Vesna, a fragile Macedonian bartender searching for her father, becomes involved in the fate of the two couples, as do a cynical manipulator named Robert, and Jakub, a devoted pot smoker. In contrast to the fate of these lonely young people, the film presents Hanka’s settled parents and a group of Japanese tourists eager to get a glimpse of a ‘typical’ Czech family. . . . The filmmakers have chosen tragicomic situations in which to set the tale of these loners-in-a-crowd who feel helplessly torn by the vagaries of fate even while living economically comfortable lives.

About the director

David Ondříček (b. 1969, Prague) began his movie career as a child actor, and in 1988-1993 studied documentary filmmaking at Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU), shooting, among other films, a documentary about the Dalai Lama entitled Om (1990). He has made a film bio of artist Theodor Pištěk (1991), the music documentaries Lucie Tour 90 (1990), Prouza and Priessnitz (1992) and Mystic Skate Cup (1996). His feature film debut came with Whisper (1996), an ordinary love story involving Prague youth. And his no-less-successful peer Petr Zelenka worked with him on the script for the similarly themed Loners (2000).