Dolls

“A girls’ holiday road movie which breaks the taboo” – this was the tagline adopted for the distribution of director Karin Babinská’s debut, which won Best Film at the Czech film festival Finále Plzeň 2007. Iška, Karolína and Vendula are all eighteen and they’ve just left school. They don’t want to give up the blithe existence of their schooldays, nor their friendships, so they plan a short trip to Holland where they’ll be working on a farm. They certainly aren’t pleased when Iška’s younger brother Vojta decides to tag along, who ultimately becomes a witness and also catalyst in the breakdown of their relationship. The girls realise that time cannot be stopped. Dolls is essentially a “coming-out” story: not only in the sense of coming to terms with one’s sexual orientation, as in the case of one of the girls, but also on a more general level. It’s a label for what is often a painful process of uncovering the most profound truth, reconciling oneself with it and finding the strength to start living according to it. This may mean accepting the necessary seclusion in order to find one’s own identity.