Known for Acting
The eponymous debt collection call center’s marketing slogan is taken to its extreme, depersonalized operators are roused from their lethargy by unbridled laughter. Not mockery, but pure, contagious laughter at the tragicomedy of trapped debtors, its echo tearing apart the operator’s apathy and the walls of the claustrophobic open-plan office.
What does a drone pilot operating on a peacekeeping mission in an unnamed country see on his monitor? We are slowly getting used to the stream of variously distorted images of so-called strategic targets. Along with the ability to see human beings, animals and landscapes in crumbling shapes, sensitivity to who is watching is increasing. The poem Three Economic Units by Tomáš Čada is the source for the film.
Psychologist Eliska contacts musician Martin with a request for him to perform at an event on mental disorders. Their intense relationship ends with Eliska's suicide, which will resolve long-lasting pain without cause. She flew through Martin's life like a spaceship. She left clothes, things, a farewell letter. But also memories, dreams and eternal encouragement to play. She's still with Martin. Like a memoir, as a gratitude for the experience, like a muse.
A primary school teacher with an inferiority complex about her weight, a bank clerk who suddenly develops a strange rash around her eyes, an aging owner of a 24-hour deli in an unhappy marriage, a lonely man living in the woods and strangers' cottages. They can continue to survive with their problems, hide them, and not deal with them. Or they can fight it and, at the cost of scars and wounds, improve their lives.
When nostalgia makes her rethink the sale of her family cottage, a woman cajoles her husband and loved ones into one last getaway.