An 80-year-old Slovak man named Ali (Jiří Menzel) heads to Vienna to see the former SS officer responsible for his parents’ death. Instead of the perpetrator, however, he only finds his 70-year-old son Georg (Peter Simonischek), who disavowed his father’s past long ago. Opposites attract for some reason, and Ali intrigues Georg, so the pair set off on a trip through Slovakia in order to shed light on the wartime tragedy. Yet an unavoidable settling of accounts ferments beneath the veneer of comic discord between ascetic Ali and bon vivant Georg: The darkness of the past can never entirely fade away. In an era of dangerous revisionism surrounding the events of the Second World War, the filmmakers emphasize the healing effects of dialogue between individuals and nations. KVIFF
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