The Halftime of Happiness

Zbyněk Brynych

1985•89 min.•

Czechoslovakia

★6(2)

Fifty-year-old Ondřej Bozděch delivers coal around Prague's Žižkov district and he loves it more than anything. He has spent his whole life here and knows all the cellars. He lives his ordinary life among the Žižkov tenement houses, enjoying the joys and sorrows of his teenage daughter Markéta and his restless son Ondra. His best friend is his driver Karel, a former mathematician who once had to leave his job at a research institute for political reasons. Although Karel is an engineer and a completely different person than the straightforward Ondrej, he has become almost a member of the Bozděch family over time. But times are changing. The old houses of Žižkov disappear one by one, Markéta has to get married and Karel is offered to return to his original profession. Ondřej has to stop and think about what kind of life he is living...