Sun, Hay and Erotic

Summary

By making Slunce, seno, jahody (Sun, Hay and Strawberries) in 1983, director Zdeněk Troška launched what would prove to be a highly popular series. The much in demand filmmaker returned to the peculiar residents of the south Bohemian village of Hoštice in 1989 to make the sequel Slunce, seno a pár facek (Sun, Hay and Slaps, 1989), loosely following up on the initial film. Audiences continued to enjoy Troška’s creations even after the revolutionary year of 1989, which turned the country’s cinema industry upside down. Following in the footsteps of the first two films, the third and final film in the series, Slunce, seno, erotika (Sun, Hay and Erotic, 1991), also attracted considerable numbers of viewers. And, after the Sun, Hay... trilogy was concluded, the director’s faithful viewers followed him through his trilogy Kameňák (Bad Joke, 2003-2005) and, above all, his three Babovřesky (Old Hag’s Yells, 2013–2015) films. However, the enduring qualities of the collaboration between Troška and collaborating screenwriter Petr Markov had already been demonstrated by the third, “erotic”, part of the first trilogy. This time around, the film’s creators bid goodbye to the laid-back fictional world of the Czech village and travelled to foreign shores (much like many members of Troška’s audiences following the demise of the country's totalitarian regime). Yet even at an Italian seaside resort, the inhabitants of Hoštice can't help but be their own idiosyncratic selves. Though not enamoured of the local food, they strike up a friendship with some local farmers who invite them to their village. Hoping to secure a lucrative partnership with their Italian counterparts, the villagers quickly create a nudist resort and an open-air museum devoted to the method of musically stimulating greater milk yields from cows: something which was at the core of Sun, Hay and Strawberries. The final question posed by the film, concerning the direction Hoštice, and by analogy the whole country, is taking, meant the title is squarely placed among features that apprehensively ponder the rising waves of “wild capitalism” evident in the early post-communist period of Czechoslovakia... The cast, once again dominated by Helena Růžičková, Stanislav Tříska and Valerie Kaplanová, is joined for the final part of the trilogy by, among others, the village girls’ Italian suitors, played by Martin Dejdar and Oldřich Kaiser.

Synopsis

Note

The film Sun, Hay, Erotic is a free sequel of Troška´s films Sun, Hay, Strawberries (1983) and Sun, Hay and Slaps (1989).