Taming Crocodiles

Colour, 35 mm
Czech Republic, 2006, 111 min
Section: Czech Films 2005-2006

Synopsis

A family comedy about how no-one wants to be left all alone. The main characters are the mountaineer Luboš, ballerina Anna and their children Vašek and Amálka. They don’t function quite like a normal family, because Luboš works in the Alps in a mountain rescue team and he only comes home once in a while. This time he returns to find plenty of problems waiting for him. Little Amálka refuses to go on a school trip to the country because she wants to spend time with Daddy, and so he has to take the job of nurse on the trip and go with her class to the Tatra mountains, where his stay is unexpectedly prolonged. Anna, who is just facing retirement and the loss of her beloved profession, is waiting for them at Grandad Pepík’s cottage, while Pepík himself goes off to Prague for a computer course. And then Vašek announces he’s off on an ecological expedition to the Caribbean. Other eccentric characters of one kind or another help to set off a chain of accidents and misunderstandings.

About the director

Marie Poledňáková (1941, Strakonice) graduated from FAMU’ s Dept. of Dramaturgy. She started at Czech Television as a script editor, writer and director. Her family comedies, presenting human relationships with gentle humour, won her great popularity and, in the case of her TV films, How to Pull out a Whale’s Tooth (Jak vytrhnout velrybě stoličku, 1977) and How to Get Daddy into a Fix (Jak dostat tatínka do polepšovny, 1979), international awards as well. Her cinema debut, You Make the World Fun (S tebou mě baví svět, 1982) won a television survey as the most popular Czech comedy of the century. She followed up these successes with the Czech-Finnish romantic comedy Powerplay (Zkrocení zlého muže, 1986) and the family comedy Twins at the Zoo (Dva lidi v zoo, 1990). From the early 1990s she devoted herself to media enterprise and jointly founded the first private TV channel Premiéra, now TV Prima. She currently works at Czech TV as head of production. With this latest film she has returned to film direction after 16 years.