Prague Cans

I can’t help it, I didn’t feel sowell after watching Prague Cans. In case of The Can, I had a few laughs and at the end told myself that it was quite a good comedy. This movie, however, cannot be considered a comedy, unless you accept the very dark humor, typical for the Sklep Theater. It features a perpetually drunk mother, a father who has half the bigwigs of Prague eating out of his hand and a girl who sells her body for cash. Three classic motifs that make a normal person’s stomach sick. Add in the gloomy rap music by Vladimir 518 and a story that has hardly any plot, which however isn’t really a problem in a movie like this. Anyhow, the actors Mádl and Kraus are the best thing in this flick. I would like to see Kraus in more movies. (28/11/2014)

The testimony of a generation (which, more than by the content and message of the movie, is delivered by Paster Oner and Vladimir 518) about how youths have nothing to do and so they get up to all sorts of mischief. And nor does middle aged Vorel know to do about that and so he gets up to all sorts of mischief. But unfortunately mischief behind the camera for an audience. It accepted all of the problems of part one from start to finish (annoying fade-outs after every other scene, grr!) and the same as in part one, everything stands or falls with Mádl alone; luckily (again the same as part one) it stands more than falls. If I were to mention a point where this movie falls, it’s Vorel Jr. and his non-actor tongue in a twist; which, unsurprisingly, applied to part one. As a result, on paper it is somewhat more serious and better than The Can, but in practice it is exactly the same with a different title; interesting to see, but there’s not much to it. (23/01/2014)

Unfortunately, Vorel or no Vorel, this is just another piece of crap from the family of extremely failed Waking Up Yesterday -style films. The defining factor is once again mainly Mádl, and then one pose next to the other, followed by Kohák sitting in a café. And sadly, this was looking like a second interesting project from the university environment. That’s too bad. (01/07/2015)

Compared to The Can, Prague Cans is much more dramatically tuned. The comedy elements have mostly disappeared and the storylines full of tragicomedy and bitterness have come to the fore. The film features quite aggressive music, which enhances the bleak atmosphere and the fate of the main characters. I was most impressed by the performance of Zuzana Bydžovská, who appears only a couple, but her performances made a strong impression on me. In short, not a bad film for Czech standards and it doesn’t do a disservice to the genre. (26/02/2017)

Même si, pour moi, Gympl était l’une des pires âneries tchèques à l’affiche ces dernières années, j’ai voulu donner sa chance à Vejška. La bande-annonce était chouette et j’avais lu dans plusieurs avis que c’était un film nettement plus mature, puis Gympl avait quand même trois éléments positifs : Mádl, Kraus et la BO. Eh bien, ces trois points positifs valent également pour Vejška et il s’en ajoute d’autres, comme la présence rafraîchissante d’Eva Josefíková et le fait que celle-ci n’incarne pas la compagne de Mádl. Pour ma part, je déteste quand on abîme des bâtiments avec des graffitis, mais heureusement, ici, les graffitis concernent principalement des bâtiments moches et des zones désignées dans des espaces publics. Je rejoins l’avis qui dit que Vejška n’est pas uniforme et qu’on est plutôt en face d’une mosaïque faite avec des scènes courtes, tantôt drôles, tantôt sérieuses. Le fait que Vorel a minimisé la quantité d’absurdités, d’exagérations et de débilités par rapport à Gympl est une excellente nouvelle, de sorte qu’on peut facilement les ignorer. J’espère juste que Zuzana Bydžovská ne recevra pas à nouveau une nomination ou un prix, notamment pour des raisons mystérieuses comme cette année pour son rôle principal. On dirait qu’il lui suffit de faire percer sa voix, de se dévêtir ou encore de cligner des yeux pour décrocher toutes sortes de prix ! Je la considère comme une bonne actrice, mais je ne la surestimerais pas non plus. Mon impression générale est positive et, personnellement, j’ai été agréablement surpris et je ne regrette pas d’avoir regardé Vejška malgré ma mauvaise expérience avec Gympl. (26/02/2014)

It's not as fun as the first one anymore, but I really appreciate Vorl's observation of characters and exposing critical points of society. Here we have beautifully disgusting characters, about whom you know they have dozens of prototypes, which almost makes you sick. Moreover, it's great to see how some characters have evolved since the first installment and how some are unable to escape from their messed-up world and change anything. (14/05/2015)