Tainted Horseplay

Special Screenings - Classics / Kopytem sem, kopytem tam / Czechoslovakia 1988

Synopsis

It's the late 1980s. Three friends – Pepe, Milan and František – are making the most of Karlovy Vary's nightlife. While their days are dampened by the tedious, at times, absurd workplace reality of late socialism, their nights are given over to decadence. Naturally, women are essential to their plans, and who says you can’t spend a night with your mate’s girlfriend as well? Except there’s a virus going around that causes a disease no-one dares mention, with currently no cure. AIDS. Věra Chytilová’s jagged, expressive directorial style is complemented by the poetic sensibilities of Sklep Theatre, whose founders appear in the lead roles. This sombre farce blends an image of a society jaded by empty regime slogans with a portrait of friendship which, in the face of threat, disintegrates into cold egoism.

Anna Kořínek

Film Stills © Státní fond audiovize, Source: Národní filmový archiv

About the film

128 min / Color, DCP

Director Věra Chytilová / Screenplay Věra Chytilová, Pavel Škapík / Dir. of Photography Jaroslav Brabec / Music Jiří Chlumecký, Jiří Veselý / Sound Miloslav Hůrka / Editor Ivana Kačírková / Art Director Zbyněk Hloch / Producer Jaroslav Bouček / Production Filmové studio Barrandov / Cast Tomáš Hanák, Milan Šteindler, David Vávra, Ivana Kuntová, Tereza Kučerová, Jiří Bartoška

About the director

Věra Chytilová. Selected filmography: Another Way of Life (1963), Daisies (1966), We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise (1969), The Apple Game (1976), PanelStory, or How a Housing Development Is Born (1979), Calamity (1980), Faun's Delayed Afternoon (1983), Tainted Horseplay (1988), The Inheritance or Fuck Off, Boys, Guten Tag (1992).