Artist Bedřich Mára (Bolek Polivka) is unable to find much secure work due to his public antagonism toward the ruling Communist Party. He has a wife and two children. Life begins to change when art historian Alois Fábera (Jiři Pecha) begins working on a piece about Bedřich, leading to a job offer from a Party official. Things are looking up, until the wrong people hear portions of the historian's writing.
Acting
Polívka's volcanic charm masks bottomless exhaustion—masterclass in coded suffering.
Writing
Dialogue so sharp you'll need stitches. Every bureaucrat is a small tragedy.
Director
Jan Hřebejk
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Set during Normalization, the post-1968 Soviet crackdown when Czech artists faced the brutal choice: emigrate, collaborate, or vanish into manual labor. The film's title references 'pupen'—a bud that never opens.
Director Hřebejk shot this between 'Divided We Fall' and 'Up and Down'—his unofficial trilogy of Czech identity under pressure. Polívka allegedly improvised the dinner table meltdown in one take.
CZ
