Post Coitum

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, 2004, 104 min
Section: Czech Films 2004-2005

Synopsis

Four men and five women: nine different characters with their own needs and desires. Each represents the current consumer culture with its characteristic ethics, each tries to acquire love and happiness at any cost. The main path to attaining this goal is purely functional sex. They become the protagonists of a rollicking game that eventually leaves them cold. They meet in bed in various combinations, which dramatically influences their lives in ways they could never have imagined. Out of the tangle of relationships, the mini-episodes of their lives gradually move towards a unified story of love and sex — towards a story of relationships that love could never trickle out of because there was never any to begin with. Jakubisko’s modern, controversial tale, taglined ‘a spinechilling comedy,’ features ever topical subject matter and ambitious artistic stylisation. The title comes from the Latin aphorism “Post coitum omne animal triste.”

About the director

Juraj Jakubisko (b. 1938, Kojšov, Slovakia) graduated in direction from Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU) in 1966, then debuted with the trademark drama Crucial Years (1967). His next films, The Deserter and the Nomads (1968), Birds, Orphans and Fools (1969) and See You in Hell, Friends (1970/1990) were banned by communist censors. As of the late sixties he was only allowed to work in television or make shorts, his return to full-length dramas finally coming in 1979. Other features: Build a House, Plant a Tree (1979), Infidelity, Slovak-Style (1981), A Thousand-Year-Old Bee (1983), The Feather Fairy (1985), Freckled Max and the Spooks (1987), Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself (1989), It’s Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill (1992), An Ambiguous Report About the End of the World (1997), Post coitum (2004). He has won a number of top international awards for his work. Since 1998 he has been a member of the European Film Academy.