Half-Time of Happiness

Zbyněk Brynych launched a prolific directing career with the love story Žižkovská romance (A Local Romance, 1958). He returned to the film's attractive on-screen Prague setting for this 1984 nostalgic drama, the lead character of which is delivery driver Ondřej Bozděch, in his fifties and feeling his age. This ordinary man has spent his whole life in Prague quarter Žižkov. Transporting coal along Žižkov’s familiar, winding roads is something he has no urge to get away from. But his children are growing up, and Žižkov’s old buildings are increasingly making way for more modern architectural designs. Even Bozděch is ultimately forced to ponder what lies ahead in his life. The film unwittingly offers an approving nod towards the controversial revitalisation of the quarter that was taking place at the time. Screenwriter Vojtěch Měšťan wrote the characters of Ondřej and his best friend, engineer Karel – forced for political reasons by the regime to leave his former job as a mathematician – with the acting talents of Josef Vinklář and Jiří Adamíra in mind.