COZY DENS

Snapshots from a spring. Czechoslovakia in the mid-1960s ? the giddy “Prague Spring,” when the light and warmth of Western liberalism began to pour in through cracks in the Iron Curtain for the Czech people. Democratic political movements threaten the monolithic domination of the Communist Party. Rock 'n' roll and the Rolling Stones stir the young generation more than Soviet anthems. And interlinked, ordinary families in a Prague suburb take humor and heartbreak day-by-day. Adult brothers argue about the height of a bear. A much-liked but lonely “comrade teacher” auditions potential dates gleaned through the personal ads, as her fatherless son watches gravely. A cantankerous, veteran Nazi resistance fighter turns his patriotic ire against the Russians, his neighbors, even his own family. Elien, the coolest guy on the block, projects movies out of his window onto a bedsheet, for all to watch. A policeman brought to school for a career-day presentation casually tells about how he shot a suspected spy, no questions asked. Soon this spring will end ? not in summer but in tumult that will shake these citizens from their “cozy dens.” A hit on home soil, Jan Hrbejk's sublimely observant comedy-drama will carry you back to that tremulous time and place when “socialism with a human face” seemed ready to materialize, and fragile freedom filled the air with possibilities. (In Czech with English subtitles.)