Animals in Town

This tragi-comedy mirroring the feelings of thirtysomethings at the end of the 1980s gave director Václav Křístek his feature-film debut in 1989. It followed his contribution to the anthology film Záhada bermudského trojuhelníku (The Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, 1987). Zvířata ve městě (Animals in Town), which also enabled screenwriter Jaroslav Vanč to break into feature films, tells the story of Karel Brach, a bachelor who grows close to Inge, a palaeontologist. Karel is an unstable character with an unreliable nature, who finds himself facing ever bigger problems, which also involve his peer Igor. In this “morally ecological” film, the filmmakers contrast animals shut in cages at the zoo with the protagonists, locked into their pre-set lives. Václav Koubek (Karel), Ivana Chýlková (Inge) and Ondřej Pavelka (Igor) star. The mysterious man, who turns out to be the narrator, is the singer Jan Vodňanský.