Zralok v hlave

Girl lights her cigarette and shouts at her dog - "Bara, Bara, come back!"" -"Come on closer.. come, don't be afraid" she hears a man's voice from the window. He looks clumsy and strange, but his eyes are honest like a child. ... Very peaceful and sensitive story (that isn't a standard story at all) about an older man, living in a different world - bit naive and strange, but full of imagination: "Duck. Have a yellow duck! Do you want to have a duck?" asks a stranger on the street while opening a waste basket filled with a duck toys. These and more scenes are based on an absolute performance of Oldrich Kaiser, the main character in this almost one-man-show. Probbably you will mention that there is no standard plot, but this movie is rather then standard a visit in a inner life of this well-known stranger on pills. These pills are a ticket to his scattered reality to escape his wild "shark in head." Only few people have feeling to understand him and his story that occurs in a public street (filmed in own flat in Prague of this popular actor O. Kaiser) seen with private eyes.

With a tighter script this film might have worked better as a theater play, since it takes place inside a ground floor apartment or on a street level in front of the building. The film presents a man's slide into mental illness, but the slide is not terribly disturbing or particularly frightening. Neither do we learn very much about him, there is some allusion to his mother and his education, but that's it. Other people come and go , not that we get to know them or what makes them tick. His presence on the street appears not to frighten anybody, and he has no hygiene problems (even his sandal clad feet and toenails are clean !) despite messing around with garbage cans. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with severely mentally ill may find this rather likable fellow not particularly believable.There are some interesting animation sequences though.

Let me first state: I like poetic little films without much action (e.g. by Eric Rohmer) - providing they manage to create an emotionally intense atmosphere and the story and also the characters develop a realistic, authentic complexity. This film here is plainly an inflated glimpse of a story developed around a single idea. As a little side story of a few minutes within a more complex story this might be acceptable or even an amiable detail. Here we learn nothing at all about this middle-aged and obviously unemployed man, we know nothing about his past, we only get a very vague notion of his immediate future, we never see him anywhere else but within or in front of his tiny apartment (where does he get his food or his money from?) The passers-by develop a certain sympathy for him since he is extremely friendly and considerate and is obviously seeking contact rather desperately. That's it. It's not a case of bad acting, the story just doesn't provide any inspiration or intensity or room for a personality to develop. Yes, he is a pitiful character, but the little animated scenes in between seem like cinematic études rather ridiculing the poor chaps hallucinations which in the context of the film is neither funny nor artistic nor does it reveal anything to the spectator. So what do we learn: Even a man not quite in his right mind can yet be a warm-hearted, friendly person...

Viewed this gem at the 2006 Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California, and was utterly captivated.

ZRALOK V HLAVE (SHARK IN THE HEAD) moves along--without being boring, despite its simple theme--due to the expressive talents of its protagonist, in conjunction with director Maria Prochazkova's skillful pacing.

Oldrich Kaiser is forever memorable as Mr. Seman, a schizophrenic man who almost never moves away from his "windows on the world" perch on a semi-busy side street of his hometown. His mother has recently died, and he now turns his attention to each and every individual who passes through his aura of influence. He offers his heartfelt gifts with no seeming motive, as he is content no matter what their responses.

Jana Krausova plays "the Lady," a breathtakingly beautiful and wise older woman who gradually "listens" to Mr. Seman with an open heart, and is possibly soothed from the sharks in her own head, through the gifts of this guileless man who is innocent of plan or purpose.

SHARK IN THE HEAD is soul food to the serious film-goer. And, hopefully more and more filmmakers will embrace this fact: people are hungering for films that linger.

Josephine Zeitlin, Actor/Los Angeles & San Francisco