Pouta (Walking Too Fast) at Gate Picturehouse

Secret police investigator Antonín Rusnák (Ondrej Malý) routinely observes the lives of 'dissidents', and the accumulation of data is nothing more than a routine chore. But his situation unexpectedly becomes complicated when he is attracted by the charms of a young factory worker, Klára (Kristína Farkaöová), who is the mistress of leading dissident Tomás Sikora. Radim Špacek's film creates a real sense of living in a police state - a world in which moral corruption spreads from the political world to the personal, where the police themselves form part of society and follow not-dissimilar lifestyles to their victims. The striking camerawork of Jaromír Kacer (The Way Through the Bleak Woods) deliberately creates a sense of being watched and observed, with a style reminiscent of police surveillance. Inevitably evoking comparison with The Lives of Others, but ultimately more disturbing, the film's strength lies in the way it portrays a system that permeates everyday life and in the compelling profile of its central character.