Silný kafe

Personal dilemma. After twenty minutes of watching an anonymous cluster of characters that I couldn't unravel even after several attempts, I wanted to leave the cinema and not bother with a film where an Egyptian and a Croat are in a relationship, and the viewer has no idea how these two got together and why on earth they stay together when they can't stand each other for longer than half an hour. The actors don't really help the director either, most of the scenes almost seem like the wrong tape footage got into the final edit instead of the proper ones. When one of the characters gets stuck in the middle of a sentence and then stutters on, the viewer probably should understand that the characters are meant to be natural. No, it doesn't work, Gunnarsson is really not Alice Nellis. So, in my eyes, the savior of the film became Davídek. The fact that he is ugly, annoying, and despotic speaks for something. His lines during his fits of rage save the unbearable static story at times and help to endure the illogically behaving collection of oddballs around him. But when I think about Silný kafe at this moment, I feel a pretty relaxed atmosphere with a decent soundtrack and, to my surprise, I judge that if I happened to come across the film on TV, I probably wouldn't resist watching the rerun. However, it won't get a better rating because at the same time I remember the scene of "improvisation on boats", where the beautiful Coufalová delivers the unforgettable line "Go or we'll...stab you". It could have been an amazing film, this is how I want to see only another film with Davídek's character and a better-made film with Coufalová, where she doesn't have to talk too much. P.S.: With the passage of several years, I gladly acknowledge that although the form is really poor, the content remains in my mind. Some dialogues are taken from real life and brutally unedited, so I raise it to three with a clear conscience. (23.11.2006)