Beauty In Trouble: Not another fairy tale
Friday, February 20th, 2009
BED BUGGIN': Marcela (Ana Geislerová, left) and Jarda (Roman Luknár)
A paperback copy of a Milan Kundera novel, held in the hands of a Czech expat, briefly appears in Beauty In Trouble. It’s a fleeting moment (and easy to miss), but it’s also an important gesture of respect from director Jan Hrebejk. Like the best of Kundera’s fiction, Beauty In Trouble explores the ways that politics, history, and economics can meet in the bedrooms of Prague.
The title’s Beauty is Marcela (Ana Geislerová), a down-on-her-luck mother of two. The Trouble is her husband Jarda (Roman Luknár), an unlikable brute who’s resorted to stealing and chopping cars as a full time profession. Cynical and thick-skinned, they’re scraping by in a world diminished by the Soviet Union’s failure and a disastrous flood. When Jarda lands in jail for a stolen Volvo, Marcela gets mixed up with the car’s owner, the wealthy and intellectual Evzen Benes (Josef Abrhám).
