Like Poison

Director Vít Olmer drew on the casual acting charisma of Zdeněk Svěrák twice in the 1980s. In the case of the tragicomedy Co je vám, doktore? (What’s the Matter With You, Doctor?) (1984) the lead contributed to the screenplay, while the bitter comedy Jako jed (Like Poison) was based on a script written by Olmer, Jiří Just and Karel Zídek, the author of the book it was based on. The movie’s protagonist is not the usual likeable, self-mocking hero played by Svěrák from whom audiences will accept anything because in the end he always finds a path to responsibility and morality. Pavel Hynk, the head of the investment department of a construction authority, is finding it hard to come to terms his forthcoming 50th birthday. He compensates for a long, routine marriage with a variety of affairs that his wife Alice does her best to tolerate with silent rationality. Then, however, Pavel gets involved with a new colleague, the married Slovak Julča. She represents everything he associates with the feminine ideal: spontaneity, romance, energy. The passionate affair unsettles the ageing Pavel and has a dramatic impact on his work performance, which barely hovers above zero. He abandons his hitherto comfortable security with self-destructive, intense fervour. This earns Svěrák’s character respect, even though his behaviour in the course of the narrative may lose the sympathy of viewers. Rather than a schematic story of the punishment of an adulterer, Olmer and Just deliver a disturbing study of masculine defeat, in which playful idealistic longing is beaten by harsh reality. Similarly Pavel’s world is presented as a dismal place in which the camera of Olmer’s favourite cinematographer Ota Kopřiva bleakly savours the world of real socialism. Alongside Svěrák’s dazzling character performance the film is particularly noteworthy for Libuše Švormová’s depiction of the hero’s wife. Ivona Krajčovičová, meanwhile, is the prototype of the seductive Slovak who also gets ahead in contemporary Czech films.