Summary
The only full feature-length film by Zoran Gospić, a Yugoslav graduate of Prague’s FAMU, this tragicomedy – in accordance with its co-production character – tells two intertwined tales. One is set in the Czech countryside, where an unhappy chimney sweep named Válek lives by a crossroads in a cottage that is constantly being ploughed into by lorry drivers. The other story centres on a Yugoslav lorry driver named Dragan, whose get-rich-quick scheme unwittingly gets him involved with international drug traffickers. The film is narrated from the perspective of Swedish tourists on package holidays, who serve as indifferent witnesses to human tragedy. Gospić’s 1989 film, which among other things is a sensitive reflection on the rising ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslavia, was misconstrued at the time of its release in the Czech Republic at the end of the 1980s.
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