Cosy Dens

Cosy Dens is a 1999 Czech film directed by Jan Hřebejk. It is loosely based on the novel Hovno Hoří (Czech: "Flaming Feces") by Petr Šabach. It was voted the best Czech film by Reflex magazine in 2011. Plot summary Pelíšky is a bittersweet coming-of-age story set in the months from Christmas 1967 leading up to the ill-fated 1968 Prague Spring. Teenager Michal Šebek (Michael Beran) has a crush on his upstairs neighbour, Jindřiška Krausová (Kristýna Nováková). Michal's family is headed by a stubborn army officer who is a firm supporter of the communist system and who believes that communist technology will eventually triumph over 'western imperialist capitalism', while Jindřiška's father is an ardent foe of the Communists and a war hero, who has been imprisoned several times because of his outspoken opposition to the regime; he believes that "the Bolsheviks have a year left at most, maybe two". In contrast, the younger generation could not care less for politics. Instead, Michal sports a Beatles mop-top while Elien (Ondřej Brousek), the local hipster whose parents live in the United States, runs a local film group specialising in Hollywood and pre-war French films, while Jindřiška becomes Elien's girlfriend. After a wedding that unites the families, the film ends with the news breaking of the invasion of the Warsaw Pact. A dispute in the film illustrates the tension between the nationalistic and stalwartly anti-Communist father and Jindřiška, who is more apolitical. Jindřiška dares to suggest that her mother’s dumplings are closer to Italian gnocchi than traditional Czech knedliky (translated as "Viennese dumplings" in the English subtitles), sending her father into a rage. The plastic spoon on the poster refers to the gifts, miracles of "socialist science", which a Šebek uncle keeps sending the family and which always fail to perform as promised, humiliating Mr. Šebek. Both cases foreshadow how the political hopes of the fathers are destroyed by the coming Soviet invasion. Trivia Pelíšky was screened at the 1999 Vancouver Film Festival.