Jaroslav (Jan Hájek) and Dana (Lucie Žáčková) are broke, and the only possibility for temporary extra income comes from robbing neighbors of retirement age. The dream of easily earned money to buy out of financial problems turns into a tragic event one day by an unfortunate coincidence. However, the police do not dwell on the dead old man in the burnt house, after all, he was a lonely man who had been threatening suicide for quite some time. However, the future Mrs. Stodolová somehow gets a taste of power over defenseless people, and the strategic ice Lady Macbeth from the Czech village begins to awaken in her. Craving for attention with a certain need for mental exhibitionism, she forces herself into the homes of strangers, changes faces, lies to them and tricks her partner into further bloody acts.
In relation to the genre, it is a mapping of the work of killers, but what elevates the film is the way in which these events are depicted: the subtle approach to the dark subject matter somehow makes it “unique”. Nothing is too explicit, it treats those affected sensitively, and the main role is usurped by the very study of the love relationship of two clearly disturbed people: a simple man who only wants a normal woman, and a woman capable of manipulating almost everyone she sets her eyes on.
The film also addresses the viewer through a serious, but often neglected problem: what about seniors dependent only on occasional visits from their own children during the holidays? What about people who have dedicated their entire lives to their family only to have them move away for better opportunities in big cities on the other side of the country? This trend is already irreversible and will only increase over the years – along with it, the number of people with a fickle sense of happiness, which appears here and there only in the moments when they see the branches of their branches again after six months. Depression from loneliness is on the rise, and it is questionable whether we as a society will be able to help them not remain, like in some cases of the Stodolovs, naive to any kind words.
However, loneliness does not have to be only about age, but also about who you share the bed with. The magically frosty Žáčková shows who is the real master here, Hájek, like his character in the film, somehow gets lost in the size of the personality of the female representative. However, it is not harmful, because the audience also becomes more involved in the harrowing experience of the husband, who would do everything to make his “softer” half happy at least for a moment. Despite this, the character of Jaroslav is not victimized in any way and in the eyes of the viewer he remains the same culprit as his counterpart.
In recent months, Czech and Slovak co-productions have been climbing to a qualitative pedestal as far as cinema news is concerned. The Stodol couple do not hesitate to experiment with an already neglected genre, the penetration into the romantic relationship of two antagonists adds a deeper layer to thinking about the nature of human evil and the need to be visible not only to the eyes of society, but also to oneself.
The author is a member of the newly established young editorial staff of the week and a student of film studies at the Academy of Musical Arts in Bratislava.
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