NÁRODNÍ TŘÍDA

A-hooligan-from-next-door kind of guy, Vandam lives in a prefabricated housing estate on the outskirts of Prague. This is where he spent his childhood, this is where he is at home, especially in the pub Severka, where he is revered by his drinking buddies as a national hero due to the fact that it was he back in 1989, or at least so he claims, who kicked off the Velvet Revolution. Vandam can talk with his fists, this is his way of asserting himself in life. But there's also another side to him: a friendly, insecure, vulnerable one and it's the latter that always comes to the fore when he attempts to win Lucka's affections.

Vandam is an ambiguous hero, a hooligan and angry citizen who quickly becomes violent in order to maintain the upper hand in his neighbourhood, and yet also helpless as soon as he leaves his familiar surroundings. The rules with which he grew up are no longer valid today. The world has become much more complex, and values have changed as well. Štepán Altrichter's second feature film, based on the book of the same name by Jaroslav Rudiš, is a poignant mapping of a mindscape characteristic of this, the thirtieth year after the fall of the Iron Curtain. CF