Fogi, a family man on the verge of a nervous breakdown – despite sharing an idyllic country home with his wife Jana, their daughter, and a son from his first marriage. Fogi tries to be a good father in his own shambolic way, and to keep his patchwork family together. But when he loses his job for smoking a joint in the factory toilet, he starts to feel his world is falling apart at the seams. His 16-year old son Vena never goes to school, preferring to hang out with his punk friend Jerry. In her desperation Fogi’s wife begins an affair with the son’s teacher (for whom the word “idiot” is the politest description). Instead of helping, the advice Fogi receives from his best friend Karel, who is given to deep and spiritual communion with nature, only adds to the train of absurd events.
Even if catastrophe looks inevitable in view of Fogi’s problems, Bohdan Sláma, whose reputation in Germany was established by THE COUNTRY TEACHER, never loses his humorous take on the situation. His nuanced portrait of characters grappling with life’s challenges dissects the absurdities of the everyday and at the same time succinctly pleads the case for hope and love.
Fogi, a family man on the verge of a nervous breakdown – despite sharing an idyllic country home with his wife Jana, their daughter, and a son from his first marriage. Fogi tries to be a good father in his own shambolic way, and to keep his patchwork family together. But when he loses his job for smoking a joint in the factory toilet, he starts to feel his world is falling apart at the seams. His 16-year old son Vena never goes to school, preferring to hang out with his punk friend Jerry. In her desperation Fogi’s wife begins an affair with the son’s teacher (for whom the word “idiot” is the politest description). Instead of helping, the advice Fogi receives from his best friend Karel, who is given to deep and spiritual communion with nature, only adds to the train of absurd events.
Even if catastrophe looks inevitable in view of Fogi’s problems, Bohdan Sláma, whose reputation in Germany was established by THE COUNTRY TEACHER, never loses his humorous take on the situation. His nuanced portrait of characters grappling with life’s challenges dissects the absurdities of the everyday and at the same time succinctly pleads the case for hope and love.