Summer Holiday
Many Austrians can still remember exactly how they spent the summer of 1978, as the national football team played their best matches of the World Cup in Argentina. The high point was the 3:2 win in Cordoba against Germany and the radio commentator Edi Finger achieved immortality by going completely crazy. This is the summer which Tondo (Niki Ryba) spends in Vienna. The long summer holidays without the journey that the neighbours can afford to make. The summer holidays have their own rhythm - at the beginning time appears to be suspended and at the end it seems to run away. Antonin Svobodas mid-length feature film communicates perfectly an atmosphere of lethargy and sultry sexuality. The inn which is the central location. The props which manifest the late 70s - there is a wonderful scene in which Tondo is taken by his older sister to her boyfriend and then sent to play with a bicycle which could only be invented in the glamour seventies - the fur 'tail' on the back is the decisive detail. The little tricks used by the father behind the counter to keep customers happy and business going. The bed-ridden woman neighbour to whom Tondo brings the meals every day. All of these more or less absurd events fuse into a round dance which is experienced by a completely unmoved Tondo who also voices no commentary. Nevertheless Summer Holiday is a realistic film, miles away from the exploitation of the 'Vienna clichè' often in evidence in Austrian cinema and with a real young star in the leading role. (Bert Rebhandl)
Grosse Ferien
1997
Austria
40 min