It's Christmas time in a Czech Republic apartment complex, but not all of the residents feel like celebrating, certainly not Dasa(Ana Geislerova), who is impervious to the yuletide spirit of a visiting neighbor. Spurned by her married lover, Dasa shows Monika(Tatiana Vilhelmova) the door, along with the romantically obsessed mistress' two bawling children, and Tonik(Pavel Liska), Monika's childhood friend, bearer of a secret flame for this claimed woman. With the unwanted gift still in Monika's possession, the mirthless Santa Claus brigade rides the elevator in silence, down, like a descent into the devil's lair. Since Monika's lover is in America, a juxtaposition is created, by which two countries beget a hierarchy, which corresponds with the two men prominent in the petite woman's life. When the mother learns that her daughter will be joining the Czech emigrate stateside, she receives the news as if a plane ticket to America is like a passport into heaven.
While Soucek(Bolek Polivka) is abroad, the people he left behind form a temporary family. To a passerby who might have happened to see Monika and Tonik confined to a rowboat, or the platonic friends with Dasa's children huddled together in an amusement park bumper car, they would presume the two arrangements of live bodies as being a happy couple and a loving family. For quite some time, Tonik's life has been in a holding pattern, but with Monika's departure looming over the horizon, this quiet, unassuming man tries to win her approval by renovating his junkyard dwelling he shares with a spinster aunt. So does the goat herder stand a fighting chance against the go-getter? Meanwhile, Monika entertains second thoughts about meeting Soucek in the states, much to her mother's considerable chagrin. When the go-getter returns for a quick visit, Soucke's post-coital diatribe about the inelegance of Czech life, generates disharmony in the reunion bed, as Monika turns over on her side with a look of quiet anguish. In judging his birthplace so harshly, he's judging her. Now that Soucek perceives himself as being something of a continental man, he unknowingly pushes Monika closer to Tonik. Bereft of her boyfriend's experiences, Monika feels like an unsophisticate, and finds solace in the company of the uncomplicated Tonik, a fellow provincial native like herself, to help the torn woman regain her bearings. But it's up to Tonik to set the love of his life free, whose official reason for staying in country, is to look after the welfare of Dasa's children.
Who knows for sure, the secrets of a woman's heart; secrets that "Stesi" wisely never reveals, although the audience has their suspicions. "Stesi" is an objective film that suggests the probability for long-term contentment may very well lie in North America, but it never consigns the economically depressed native country and the people who live there, to hell. Contrary to what Soucek thinks, living in the former Czechoslovakia is not the end of the world.
Love resides there. It just might be the beginning.
While Soucek(Bolek Polivka) is abroad, the people he left behind form a temporary family. To a passerby who might have happened to see Monika and Tonik confined to a rowboat, or the platonic friends with Dasa's children huddled together in an amusement park bumper car, they would presume the two arrangements of live bodies as being a happy couple and a loving family. For quite some time, Tonik's life has been in a holding pattern, but with Monika's departure looming over the horizon, this quiet, unassuming man tries to win her approval by renovating his junkyard dwelling he shares with a spinster aunt. So does the goat herder stand a fighting chance against the go-getter? Meanwhile, Monika entertains second thoughts about meeting Soucek in the states, much to her mother's considerable chagrin. When the go-getter returns for a quick visit, Soucke's post-coital diatribe about the inelegance of Czech life, generates disharmony in the reunion bed, as Monika turns over on her side with a look of quiet anguish. In judging his birthplace so harshly, he's judging her. Now that Soucek perceives himself as being something of a continental man, he unknowingly pushes Monika closer to Tonik. Bereft of her boyfriend's experiences, Monika feels like an unsophisticate, and finds solace in the company of the uncomplicated Tonik, a fellow provincial native like herself, to help the torn woman regain her bearings. But it's up to Tonik to set the love of his life free, whose official reason for staying in country, is to look after the welfare of Dasa's children.
Who knows for sure, the secrets of a woman's heart; secrets that "Stesi" wisely never reveals, although the audience has their suspicions. "Stesi" is an objective film that suggests the probability for long-term contentment may very well lie in North America, but it never consigns the economically depressed native country and the people who live there, to hell. Contrary to what Soucek thinks, living in the former Czechoslovakia is not the end of the world.
Love resides there. It just might be the beginning.