She Grazed Horses on Concrete
| She Grazed Horses on Concrete | |
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DVD
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| Directed by | Štefan Uher |
| Written by |
Short stories: Milka Zimková Screenplay: Milka Zimková Štefan Uher |
| Starring | Milka Zimková Veronika Jeníková Marie Logojdová Peter Staník Ľubomír Paulovič |
| Music by | Svetozár Štúr |
| Cinematography | Stanislav Szomolányi |
| Edited by | Maxmilián Remeň |
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Release date
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Running time
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78 minutes |
| Country |
Slovakia Czechoslovakia |
| Language | Slovak |
She Grazed Horses on Concrete (Slovak: Pásla kone na betóne) is a film which lays out serious topics that include a woman's capacity to hold her own in society, sexual mores, and abortion, and balances them with comedy and irony in proportions that instantly made it one of the biggest domestic blockbusters in Slovak cinema.
A quarter of a century later, its DVD release sold out within weeks. The film, directed by the reputed Štefan Uher, made the women at its center stage stand for humankind as matter-of-factly as much of Central European filmmaking had been portraying men's worlds, the quiet turnaround never even became a talking point. It was also the first film that employed a regional variety of the language that would be naturally used where the story took place, which provided an additional layer of humor whose novelty had people rolling in the aisles.
Its baffling title quotes a verse from a fresh folk song about a woman striving to accomplish impossible feats. Attempts to render it in English resulted in the film being shown and quoted under a range of titles that have included She Kept Crying for the Moon, She Kept Asking for the Moon, A Ticket to Heaven (also the erroneous A Ticket to the Heaven), and Concrete Pastures.
The film was entered into the 13th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Silver Prize.
Johanka (Milka Zimková) had a fling with a well-digger (Peter Vonš) she had not met before and who, she was most likely certain, would never be around again. About 18 years later, she is a single woman respected and recognized at the local co-op farm where she works − except that it does not translate to the same compensation for her as for the male workers − who keeps turning down her lifelong suitor, friend and neighbor Berty (Peter Staník). Her 18-year-old daughter Paulína (Veronika Jeníková) commutes by bus to work in the nearby city, which gives the village gossips the occasional opportunity to remind her of her unknown father. A resultant conflict with her mother makes Paulína take up residence in the city.
Johanka, prodded by her also-single friend Jozefka (Marie Logojdová) who maintains that a woman without a man is nothing, begins to woo the new teacher Jarek (Jiří Klepl) only to discover later that he is married. Paulína, in the meantime, loses her virginity to the soldier Jirka (Ivan Klečka) who promptly makes himself scarce. Johanka fails to consider that she actually has a better life than some of her married neighbors, begins to see abortion or marriage as Paulína's only options, and places personals on her behalf. Although Štefan (Ľubomír Paulovič), one of the men who respond, turns out to be less than ideal, Paulína falls for him.
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Wikipedia