lÍbÁŠ jako bŮh

A man caught between two women and a woman caught between two men. Helena, a likable high school French teacher, is blessed with somewhat less fortune in her private life: her now ex-husband refuses to leave the flat and her new lover František, an emergency physician with a dry sense of humour, is in fact already married. These are the driving forces behind this fast-paced comedy about love, dreams and jealousy.

When asked where she gets the ideas for her popular stories, screenwriter and director Poledňáková answers, "that’s easy. I just step outside and listen". In this spirit she develops, behind the internal complexities characteristic of this at times amorous, at others quarrelsome gang of four, an astute and warm-hearted insight into everyday life, including the constraints and worries of the everyday people who constitute it.

A wry analysis that obviously got under the collective skin of a nation. The numbers speak for themselves: almost 773,000 viewers have watched lÍbÁŠ jako bŮh, making it among the most successful Czech films of all time, quite possibly because it deals with the dreams of the current generation of fifty-somethings. On this point the director says, “you only go around once, and it is up to you how you experience and make use of this one-time opportunity …This is a theme we all know; those who have reached their golden years are missing the three dots after the sentence. It is an imperative. Either now or never!”