BEFORE TONIGHT IS OVER  1966
(Kým sa skončí táto noc)
Directed by, Peter Solan
89 minutes
In Slovak with English subtitles

With Czechoslovakian movies from the mid-1960s it's like anything else in film history: it's always the same few movies that are shown repeatedly. In any case, here we have one that probably isn't included in any kind of 'canon'; a small gem from that period and shot in the southeastern part of the country which is today known as Slovakia. It goes without saying that is barely ever screened.

This entire movie takes place during the course of a single evening. It's set in a nightclub during the winter, high in the Tatra mountain range outside Bratislava. The film focuses on two typists who have scraped together some money from their small wages and are on a vacation in search of romance. The movie also explores the collection of strange people they are surrounded by—two plumbers who are looking to score, a few second-rate jazz musicians, a building contractor who turns out to be a thief. It explores their lives, revealing all the hidden realities they are enduring, along with the false masks they have created. Everybody is acting relaxed and chilled, as if they are having a good time and partying, but there is a desperation deep under the surface that explodes at various moments.

What we get in the end is a kind of microcosm of Czech society, a cross-section of its people and their illusions. Characters who were locked in by the Communist system at the time—but the film is just as much about their false dreams of capitalism in the west. The film throws us into this dance-floor of characters and wild situations, a kaleidoscopic glitterball throwing light on a certain kind of madness… a social commentary told with a bittersweet sense of black humour.