MEČIAR

The revolution of 1989 saw not only dissidents but also complete unknowns enter politics. One of the latter, Vladimír Mečiar, was employed as a lawyer for a state-owned enterprise when he resolved to start a political party of his own, possessing as he did sufficient charisma to be regarded by many as a bearer of hope. Subsequently his name would go down as synonymous with the wild nineties, a time when the old regime had been brought down and a replacement was yet to be found. The spirit of the all-powerful Mečiar also hung like a spectre throughout director Tereza Nvotová's childhood, born as she was in 1988. He dominated the news, his image was on the wall of her classroom, he was the cause of disputes among family and friends, and ultimately created a politicised general public that voted him out of office. The Mečiar phenomenon remains present in the director's thoughts to the present day: she interviews the retired politician in his opulent villa and reconstructs his rise and fall, as well as the scandals that accompanied him, with the help of archive footage, as well as photos from her family's private archive. CF