Gejza Maráky

Trip on the Danube

Two female clerks using up their savings to enjoy a few days of carefree life, two plumbers looking for an erotic adventure, a building contractor determined to drink away all wages of his workers and a former major who became an alcoholic due to political persecution — these people meet in a ski resort bar somewhere in the High Tatras. During one night they gradually reveal their unfulfilled dreams, illusions and disappointments of ”average" people of those times.

After five years of hard work in America Juraj Hordubal (Anatoliy Kuznetsov) returns back home. He is looking forward to his wife Polana (Libuse Geprtová) and his little daughter Hafie. The family and the village welcome him with hesitation. Everybody believed that Juraj died in America because Polana stopped receiving money from him already two years ago. Polana's farm was prospering first of all thanks to the young stable boy Stepán (Sándor Oszter). Men in the pub first indicate and then say to Juraj directly that Polana has been unfaithful to him with Stepán.

Páni sa zabávajú

The second, and unfortunately. the last feature film made by a unique talent among Slovak filmmakers, Elo Havetta, is one of the most originial pictures of Slovak cinematography. The film was conceived as a paraphrase of Vincent Šikula's prose, the tragic episodes of which screenwriter Lubor Dohnal and Havetta composed into a dramatic story. The main characters are veterans coming home from the First World War. And while they feel a need to find A home and settle down, they are also driven by a passion for a vagrant's free life.

Tou former boxers meet in the ring again after years for a re-run of an old match. The old loser currently works as a factory executive and he is unwilling to reconcile with his old defeat. He challenges the old winner, whose job in a garage puts him on the opposite end ofthe career ladder. The match is a battle fought between two men who stand for two different attitudes to life. The confrontation results in the revelation that the winner is not always the one whose arm is raised by the referee after the last round.