The story in ‘Pelísky‘ (titled ‘Cozy Dens‘ in English distribution), made in 1999 by director Jan Hrebejk, takes place between December 24, 1967 and August 21, 1968. These 8 months were probably among the most significant in the history of the country then called Czechoslovakia and included one of the main events of the year of uprisings and changes that was 1968. During this time, Czechoslovakia went through a period of change due to the coming to power of a team of reformist communist leaders who tried to liberalize the society ankylosed in the post-Stalinist dictatorship and to experiment with a ‘socialism with a human face’. The attempt to combine socialism with democracy was cut short by the brutal invasion of the country by the armies of the Soviet Union and four of its satellite countries in Eastern Europe. It would be another 21 years before Czechoslovakia and the other countries in the Soviet sphere of influence would regain their freedom. ‘Pelísky‘ follows the lives of two generations of two families, neighbors in an unnamed town, who clash in lifestyles and worldviews. It is a sensible film, full of humor and compassion.
The setting is an ordinary building in an ordinary Czechoslovak city. In an apartment in the building lives the family of an officer who has two children, the teenager Michal and his younger sister. Michal is in love as only teenagers can be with Jindriska, a high school classmate and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, who live in the apartment above. His love is hopeless, as the girl prefers a classmate with longer hair and parents in America. Mr. Kraus is a war hero and an opponent of the communist regime, nostalgic for the past and hoping for the imminent fall of the ‘Bolsheviks’. Mrs. Kraus is very ill. Nearby lives the officer’s sister, a widow and mother of a ten-year-old boy, who is still trying to find a new life partner and a new father for her son. In each apartment Christmas is celebrated differently. The differences subtly highlight the characters and opinions of each family. Even deeper seem the differences between generations. Teenagers and children long to live their lives. Parents are stuck in their opinions, which differ politically, but which meet in obtuseness and misunderstanding of the aspirations of young people for freedom.
If a revolution is taking place outside the walls of the building, it does not seem to concern the film’s heroes too much. They do not discuss politics and there is not even a television set to bring home the news about the changes that are taking place. Only in the school where a few scenes are filmed can we observe divergences that have a political substratum. And these are mitigated by the language, a mixture of European politeness inherited from tradition and the wooden language of communist comradely relations. I really liked the approach of the screenwriters and director Jan Hrebejk. Some of the characters have dark corners in their biography but these are approached with humor, understanding and in the most severe case with sarcasm. The comedy of characters is mixed with a few scenes of classic sitcoms, and the political substratum is insinuated. The actors’ performances are excellent. I lived in 1967-68 in another communist country, the teenagers in the film are from my generation, the parents in the film are from my parents’ generation. I could recognize in many of the characters in ‘Pelísky‘ the typologies that I encountered in those times. The cinematic narrative is fluent. For those who know history and follow the dates mentioned in the film, what happens at the end is not completely unexpected. The infernal noise of the planes and tanks of the invading armies breaks the apparent comfort of the micro-universe in which the heroes of the film were trying to survive. The ending is a well-known tragedy and a two-decade postponement of history.