A lyrical tragicomedy about the relationship between postman Jakub who comes from a “respectable” white family, and Jolanka who lives in the nearby Romani settlement. Their dreams of a life together are frustrated by misunderstanding and prejudice from those around them and, in the end, they themselves inevitably become aware of their own differences. A film which shone a light through the dull veil of normalisation in Czechoslovakia and revived faith in the value of human emotions.
After the censors banned his films 322 and Pictures of the Old World, Dušan Hanák found another enclave untouched by ideology in the environment of a Romany settlement. Outwardly, he was thus acknowledging the regime’s conspicuous interest in integrating Roma into society. Yet, through his realistic vision of the lives of Roma and their relationships with white Czechoslovaks, and in the tone of the film itself, he was actually rejecting these simple assimilation theories.
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