Poupata (Flower Buds) Directed by Zdeněk Jiráský / Czech Republic, 2011

The horizons enveloping the desolate setting through which the tracks run hint at the possibility of a better life, not to mention an omnipresent means to get there, but do so with an almost certain reluctance to deliver. The reality for those living in the midst of the tracks, including Jarda and his family, contrast sharply with such hopeful symbolism. Unlike the unstoppable trains that charge relentlessly towards their destination throughout the film, evoking a monstrous terror with the incessant sound of rattling and metal grinding against metal, Jarda and his family are stuck in the melancholic rut that is their lives.

Poupata draws a portrait of a family fraught to overcome their individual trials and tribulations, but fail miserably at every turn. Each member of Jarda’s family struggles to overcome the respective constrains of their dismal existence through varying desperate measures. Agata (the disheartened daughter) grapples with an unpleasant reality that she wishes to escape from, even at the cost of lying to her lover. Honza (the idealistic son) becomes infatuated with a woman seemingly out of his league, and goes to radical lengths to attain the unattainable. Kamila, (the ever-optimistic wife and mother) tries to stay hopeful while well-aware that the cracks growing in her family life wont diminish any time soon. Jarda (the despondent father and husband, on all fronts) immerses himself in meticulous, time-consuming and mind-numbing tasks by day while spending his family’s non-existent fortune on slot machines by night. Each individual story is inextricably interwoven with the other to portray a full account of one family’s struggle to survive.

The tired monotony of life is strongly felt in this vivid depiction of working-class life, and the complexity of existential dissatisfaction is alive in every scene. Unconditional love is repeatedly displayed through acts of ultimate betrayal, a narrative that underpins the entire film, leaving you deeply moved and equally perturbed at the paradox that is the very nature of human life and relationships. By the end, one cannot help but sympathize with the characters while simultaneously faulting them for their masochistic compulsions and self-defeating habits.

By Sara Ishaq