Empties

"Kolya" won director Czech Jan Sverak an Oscar. His new film has a similarly charming hero, namely Josef, a retired teacher, who is willing to go into quite some trouble in order to avoid his boring home life with wife Eliska. He takes on a job in a supermarket therefore, as the guy, who takes back the empty bottles. Within no time he has become the number one matchmaker of the supermarket - setting up lonely colleagues with similarly lonely and single customers, and vice versa. While Josef is fully occupied with this task he took upon himself, Eliska can't help but wonder why her husband will not spend more time with her. Poetically, quietly and occasionally sadly, this film tells the tale of two people, who have known each other for a very long time, who have lived together for a very long time - and who have done so with the difficulties and complications this entails. "Empties" is a love-story of a very special kind, about very special people and very special moments in life. And by being funny as well it reinvents and revolutionises classical bitter-sweet Czech comedy.