Icing

A guy’s idea of what a girls’ comedy should look like. The women behave like frivolous, hysterical bitches without a sense of humour. They are incompetent with technical things or the film makes fun of their possible technical competence. They lie, pretend and manipulate others. Their only topic of conversation is men, from whom they derive happiness in their lives. One of them is interested in hockey only because she bet on the outcome of a match – an irrationally large amount of money on an irrationally high score. Just like in porn and other male fantasies, the women have no inhibitions when it comes to indulging in lesbian sex. The male storyline is more believable and funnier (though Sokol, with good timing and a well-chosen tone of voice, sometimes forgets that he isn’t doing improv and goes farther over the line than the film’s stylisation can bear), but it is also much shorter and mostly unnecessary. It’s nice that the men deal with similar issues as the ladies, but that shouldn’t be such an obvious screenwriting construct (like a lot of other situations in the film) and should be better combined with the women’s storyline. Together with the flashbacks and the actors’ Brechtian utterances directly to the camera, the dual narrative creates the impression of a sophisticated, layered work in which multiple parallel motifs could intersect in the ending and bring about some kind of catharsis. But nothing of that sort happens. A few people make fools of themselves and long-withheld information is revealed, but it doesn’t seem that anyone learned any moral lessons from what they have experienced (the film somewhat chauvinistically implies that rotten women are to blame for relationship conflicts, not rotten men). The attempt at depth only draws attention away from the sitcom shallowness of the whole film, which is basically just a kind of extended episode of a series like How I Met Your Mother that accidentally got released to cinemas, but with lower-quality actors and rythmisation and far less intelligent humour. 50% (05/06/2014)

The director Hřebejk is capable of shooting an ultimate trove of psychology called Honeymoon and then shooting a dialogue window into the world of gossiping hens all within a single year. I have nothing against those actresses, I’d even like to see Hana Vagnerová in proper movies more often. But what they were capable of once they got together was too much for me. When I see bimbos like this in a pub, I usually get up and leave because they’ve spoiled my entire evening at that point. Here at least I was only sitting on my sofa, that’s their only luck. I’m just hoping I won’t ever get to see it a second time. (11/07/2016)

I have a rather futile feeling about the simple fact that in essence, Michal Hrůza's eponymous video clip is a better watch. However, some of the sub-elements contained in this work are worthy of attention. This means that even Hřebejk's theatrical diary serves only half the purpose. But it's still a much better experience when I think of the dysfunctional Garbage, the City and Death. (25/07/2016)

La magie du théâtre A studio Rubín et de la pièce condensée d’une heure s’est quelque peu dissoute dans la version filmique. Je me souviens m’être éclaté et avoir ri du début à la fin, tandis qu’avec le film, je savais parfois à quelles blagues m’attendre, puis, outre les passages poétiques, certains d'entre eux étaient également relativement lourds. Ce qui ne me dérange pas du tout, c’est l‘ajout des acteurs masculins et la superbe prestation d’une minute de Norbert Lichý. Je comprends que Jan Hřebejk se soit pris d’intérêt pour cette pièce et, dans l’ensemble, j’ai bien aimé son adaptation, mais pour moi, le théâtre l’emporte presque systématiquement sur le cinéma, surtout quand je vois le film après avoir vu la pièce. Je me souviens bien aussi de la présence de M. Hřebejk à la représentation à laquelle j’ai assisté au théâtre Rubín, donc qui sait si l’idée de ce film ne lui est pas venue à ce moment-là ! L’un dans l’autre, je pense que Zakázané uvolnění mérite un bon trois étoiles et certainement plus que les 44 pour cent qu’il a reçus ici. (02/01/2015)

I'm starting to wonder if Hana Vagnerová chooses this type of films on purpose. As usual, she was the only thing in the film worth looking at, otherwise it was a total disaster with lousy acting performances, bad writing and lame jokes. More than an hour of my life, which I could have used in a much more pleasant way (banging my head against the wall or sticking needles under my fingernails). (01/09/2018)

It's not that bad of a film, and in fact I think it's very well acted in terms of dialogue, although there is too much overacting for some of the characters, but this is originally a theatre and that's where it fits. However, even the film didn't detract much from the power of the basic statement. (12/03/2018)