dtomek

One funny detail: when the Czech Police attack the mafia headquarters, they arrive in the cars bearing the sings and name of the Municipal Police. It is funny to see Municipal Police with bazookas shooting to the mafia; in reality Municipal Police have only competence for minor offences - they mainly give tickets for wrong parking or they help school children to cross the street on the way to school.

But on the whole: I was glad that this was one of the few movies where Prague locations represent Prague, and not another city, as the case is in many other cases:-)

The question of this film is just fascinating. After leaving the cinema, my girlfriend and I were sitting for about two hours discussing the issues. This means, the subject is great.

However, I have troubles in telling what answer is given in the film to the question. Maybe this(?): there is an upper class, i. e. the whites, the politics and the weapon producers who oppress the lower class. But I did not see any clear connection leading from the class/racial struggle to the murders.

The problem may be that no more statistics was shown than just the mere number of murders. Who is the typical murderer? Who the typical victim? This was not explored in the movie in more depth. Just one case of mass killing was chosen. Is it typical or rather an exception? No information on this. I tend to assume that that was not the typical U.S. murder.

The good thing is that the movie is entertaining and intelligent, despite the serious subject. The best part of the movie for me was the director's trip to Canada.

Overall: fascinating question, clearly put. But no real answers.

Let me argue a bit with the film, because some details were really ridiculous to me, when the maker tried to put his leftish ideas at any cost, whether they are relevant for the weapon issue or not. Coming from a country with a mostly state run health care, I could not help smiling bitterly over the scene, where a man coming from a doctor proudly declares that he has not paid anything for the medical treatment. Neither do I often. The other side of the "free" health care is that (1) you are no customer for the doctor, just a beggar and (2) for such "free" state "services" I pay about 45% tax on income, 22% VAT on everything and many other excize taxes...

And the oh so moving scenes, how people have to go by bus to work and earn just 8,50 USD per hour? In most regions of my country people are happy to get some job for 1,50 USD per hour and they have to pay for land, houses, cars and consumer goods basically the same price as everywhere else. And they do not kill anybody because of it, they are happy to earn the money. So, this was not impressive at all!

Just seen this movie. The most striking thing about it was that it is almost a copy of the previous Zelenka's film on musicians - Happy End (Mnaga a Zdorp): large part is spoken in English by a foreigner who serves as an independent observer of the described Czech artist. I am not a fan of Nohavica or Plihal, but this was a pleasant movie. Nohavica is a folk star for masses of people without much presence in the media. Therefore, we will be grateful to Zelenka in the future to have this as a memory on the excellent artist.