Příběh '88

In the mid-1980s, Zuzana Hojdová brought to Barrandov a subject not dissimilar to Clade Sautet's A Simple Story. But a similar female theme could never have been done in the same way in free France in the late 1970s and in the Czech Republic in the mid-1980s. So in the end, the character of Romy Schneider had to deal only with the moral issue of infidelity, abortion, and related topics, while the Czech Jana Krausová had a much worse situation. Her career has stagnated for completely bizarre reasons, and her extramarital love affair has been joined by a final verdict on the choice to raise an illegitimate child or never have any more... And as if that wasn't enough, A Story from '88 arrived in theaters on the eve of the Velvet Revolution, and its life was unfortunately ephemeral. However, taken as a whole, A Story from '88 is great melodramatic cinema, with a great visual component that relies on the idea of setting the story in the artistic milieu of fashion and theater backstage. In terms of the acting, the overall feel is very natural, though it relies on overly literary dialogue at times. But sometimes love situations are like that in real life. (2015.03.26)