Strieborný prach

A visually experimental adaptation of the classic Frank Stockton short story.

Summertime on the coast of Maine, "In the Bedroom" centers on the inner dynamics of a family in transition. Matt Fowler is a doctor practicing in his native Maine and is married to New York born Ruth Fowler, a music teacher. His son is involved in a love affair with a local single mother. As the beauty of Maine's brief and fleeting summer comes to an end, these characters find themselves in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.

Adolf (Miloš Kopecký), the irresistible seducer of women, is fond of Janicka (Hana Lelitová), a novice opera singer. The girl, however, prefers famous men and Adolf thus does not have a single chance with her. One day in a hospital, he meets a Greek partisan named Apostolek (Pavel Landovský) who impresses him with his spontaneity and ease in solving all problems, especially those with women. Adolf has an idea for a revenge. He makes Apostolek familiar with social manners, dresses him after the latest fashion and introduces him to Janicka as a Greek conductor. Janicka instantly falls in love with the made-up composer and Apostolek does no better.

In post-WWII Communist Czechoslovakia, several characters considered bourgeois are sentenced to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. Among them is a young man who pines for a female convict.

Disillusioned with his marriage which has ended in divorce, Petr Leroy goes off to the Riviera to the place where he first met his wife and where he hopes to be spiritually revived. Here he meets his friend Jan and together they enjoy the joys the Riviera has to offer. Jan meets a charming girl at the casino and he takes her off into the mountains. On his return he speaks of the beautiful Olga with whom he has spent a wonderful three days. Olga, however, does not appear for a meeting they had arranged, so Jan goes to look for her in the mountains. Then he sees her in a village and tries to catch up with her in his car. He has an accident. Olga takes him to the nearest sanatorium where everyone behaves very strangely to the newly-arrived patient.

In this bitingly satirical film Peter Slovan, a continuous source of trouble for the film functionaries of the socialist Slovakia, tackles an evergreen topic – the corruptive effects of power. Barnabáš Kos, a triangle player at a symphonic orchestra, is suddenly promoted to serve as the head of the said institution, even though both he and his superiors deem him completely unfit for the task. Encouraged in equal parts by this unexpected recognition and the servile praise of his colleagues, Kos’s modesty starts to gradually vanish. The erstwhile bashful and aloof percussionist quickly becomes aware of the advantages of his new office, and begins to realise his increasingly ludicrous artistic ambitions. Ultimately, the submissive marionette turns into a source of public humiliation, and his astonishing career finds an abrupt end. Orchestra serves here as a microcosm that grotesquely reflects the absurd and tragicomic mechanisms of the paranoid apparatus of power.

An artist is so consumed with painting a portrait of the women he loves that he doesn't notice she is dying until it's too late. Shot as a silent film.