Something Like Happiness

"Stesti" was my all-time first Czech movie. It won't be the last.

Being a newcomer in the Czech Republic I still do not quite understand the language. For the same reason I wen't to watch the movie with English subtitles - I thought. It turned out that this version of the movie was without any kind of subtitles.Desided to give the movie a chance anyway - and I did not regret it.

Even though I understood none of the spoken words, the story was cristal clear to me. The story of this movie has been told many times before (it especially reminds me of the Danisk feature film "Mifunes sidste sang). Nonetheless the performances by the main characters are very trustworthy and "real". The settings and scenery makes the movie all the more authentic. During the movie you can't help start thinking that some real-life people are really living under these circumstances.

The story is dark and at the same time beautiful. Check out the movie if you are in the mood for a hardcore real-life story.

Definitely one of the best films I have ever seen. Slama has worked on this project for a long time and the result is really outstanding. The characters are very real and the depiction of life in terrible conditions is very faithful. Slama also carefully chose the actors and the choice was excellent. Also his work with actors is very natural and therefore the acting in the movie is unforced and smooth. This movie really got under my skin. Very clever, perfect workmanship and strong theme. I left the cinema and couldn't stop thinking about it. This is exactly the movie that starts up your mind and raises a lot of questions. But despite it's mostly sad movie it doesn't leave the sad feeling in you. After all it is optimistic, in the end it celebrates life and my opinion is that it raises the happy things in life.

I recommend this movie to everyone.

Good luck :)

...as it's indicated in movie info. Better genre description is "bitter-sweet comedy".... This movie is pretty sad look into life of poor people from industrial part of Czech. It's about life which most of us wouldn't like to live, but all of us should realize, that a lot of people live their lives that way. After you see this movie, you will realize how perfect life you live, how hard life some people live and how much should we be thankful for every day we live. What is most neighbourly in this movie, is that characters in are not described as embittered people without buoyancy, but as people who enjoy every day and every little joy as it comes...

The film "Stesti" ("Some kind of happiness") reminds me of the cinema of the Czech New Wave of sixties, especially of the first films of Milos Forman (The Loves of a Blonde, The Firemen's Ball). The same sincere and touching interest to the preoccupations and destiny of the simple people, especially their sentimental life. The same unhurried cadence. But it is a more disillusioned film also, probably because it describes a country in the state of breakdown before reconstruction and it shows the people in the turmoil and torment of change. It is an unsophisticated film, as films of the developing world often are, but it is realistic and honest one as these films are sometimes. Of course Czechie is not a developing country but it seems that the sophistication and glamor of Western cinema is not so easy to attain even for a director of talent. I must mention also the work of the cameraman. Especially his landscapes. Sometimes they are absolutely exquisite. Sometimes beautiful and nostalgic.

There are quite different opinions on Bohdan Slama, a young Czech director. I give my own here. I believe him to be the greatest talent of the current Czech cinematography. He worked on his second movie "Stesti" really hard and for a long time, which eventually led to a surprisingly good result and high expectations of his upcoming work. He is marvelous (and precise!) in directing the actors, he gives them life and credibility. The movie is very dense and every moment is functional so it requires you to watch carefully! Most people say it is a sad or even a drastic movie and take the name Stesti rather as irony of the author. "Stesti" is ambiguous between happiness and luck. The German Glück is exactly the same. (How silly that they try to find different names for it in English and German! Something like happiness is a REALLY bad translation.) Seeing the movie only from its sad side is seeing the surface. Somewhere deeper, in the minds of the two main characters - Tonik and Monika, who eventually fall in love, there is a real happiness, one which most of us hasn't had the opportunity to experience. The happiness stems from the very fact that they live a life which is not simple but very meaningful. The sad and drastic background stands in direct contrast to the inner happiness of the characters. This is most apparent at the very end, where Monika, after leaving her boyfriend in the United States (most obviously standing for empty meaningless material dreams, not at all for a better life) comes back to Tonik's house (the symbol of all his humble material efforts but also and mainly his home), which is under destruction. Monika leaves the place with a light smile (how can people not see that!) and goes looking for Tonik, the source of her happiness, the one who gives her life meaning, no matter where he is, whether he has a house, or fixes broken windows with a piece of scotch-tape. The message of the movie is totally universal and labeling it as a social drama stemming from the unsatisfactory situation of an industrial and poor region of the Czech Republic is a misinterpretation, or at least a demotion.