Boredom in Brno/Nuda v Brně (2003)

Thursday / 7th December 2006 / 20:00

Czech Republic / 2003 / 103 minutes / director: Vladimír Morávek / screenplay: Vladimír Morávek, Jan Budař / cinematography: Diviš Marek / music: Jan Budař / editing: Jiří Brožek / cast: Kateřina Holánová (Olga Šimáková), Jan Budař (Stanislav Pichlík), Miroslav Donutil (Miroslav Norbacher), Martin Pechlát (Jaroslav Pichlík), Jaroslava Pokorná (Miriam Šimáková) /

Boredom in Brno is one of the most curious debuts in contemporary Czech cinema - awarded at several festivals (including five Czech Lions), popular with cinemagoers as well as film critics, written by an actor and shot by a 38-year old film debutant who had a flourishing career in the field of theatre behind himself.

Vladimír Morávek made Boredom in Brno as a personal project, collaborating with actors he knew from his theatre years in Hradec Králové (where a large portion of the film was shot), and interweaving personal experience into the plot. Brno functions as a metaphor of a specific state of mind - a town where time stands still sometimes, where nothing crusial is happening, from where all ambitious people flee to Prague, the cultural mecca of Czech Republic, or dream about it at least. Brno stands for the clash of small and big ambitions in the lives of people, a city with the atmosphere of a small town where after sunset the streets get empty suddenly.

The title of the film also plays with the concept of small and big events in human life - it takes place in one hot and lazy summer day, and the only "big" event is consummated sex between two young people, the main characters Olinka and Standa, who are in love with each other and spend their first night together despite circumstances. With this concept, undermining the significance of "official" history in the lives of ordinary people, Morávek goes back to the poetics of Czech New Wave with its emphasis on interpersonal relationships in the scope of common everyday situations, communication gaps, awkwardness and irony.

Boredom in Brno tries to capture a breaking point in one´s life (sexual initiation) with all its spontaneous comicality, clumsiness and beauty. The structure of the film allows for chance to enter - loosely connected episodes, stones in a mosaic, which intersect in the end, remind us not only of the New Wave films, but also of Jim Jarmusch and his Czech follower Petr Zelenka. As in Zelenka´s films, the characters of Boredom have their peculiarities and suffer from the lack of meaningful communication, friendship, or love. What makes Morávek´s debut special, however, is his ability of critical detachment combined with sympathy for those who are able to make decisions, even if results are different from the expectations.

Veronika Klusáková