Always watch this over Christmas, in Czech. Being born in 1968, married to a Slovak and having studied the history and language the film is a great reminder of how ordinary family lives can be turned upside down by events that no one in the general population has any control over.
The film itself is funny throughout, interspersed with sadness and failure and features characters I have met in my lifetime across the age groups. That's one of the enduring features - the realism laying below the near-slapstick humour. These characters act like normal people leading commonplace lives finding fun where they can, falling into despair when they can't avoid it and eventually succumbing to the general inevitability of events in the background of their lives.
The film itself is funny throughout, interspersed with sadness and failure and features characters I have met in my lifetime across the age groups. That's one of the enduring features - the realism laying below the near-slapstick humour. These characters act like normal people leading commonplace lives finding fun where they can, falling into despair when they can't avoid it and eventually succumbing to the general inevitability of events in the background of their lives.