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THE CLEANER

by Peter Bebjak

synopsis

Tomáš leaves prison in a group of other people, at the gate parting the others, the breathes out with relief. He comes to his small modest Petržalka flat and after a bit of work-out and a protein-rich dinner, he sits down watching some popular-educative program on cable TV. In the morning he is woken up to the sound of a text message announcing him the address of his next job. As a funeral service worker, he removes dead body fluids and sanitizes the places of death. He cleans the household in absence of its residents, at work he collects his pay in cash, goes home – to wait for the next call. Tomáš is not very sociable. The claims to the psychiatrist, where he is obviously obliged to attend, that he sometimes goes out for a beer with his colleagues, but in reality, his closest people are his neighbours, whose conversations he sometimes hears through the bathroom ventilation shaft. Regular telephone calls with his mother also cannot be considered as a more significant socialization element, since they always contain the same questions and answers regarding the current state of each of them. “Fine. And you?” The stereotype of HIS days is only disrupted in a moment, when he panics and hides in one of the households as the people who live there return, so that they don´t find out he hasn´t left yet, although he should have done so a long time ago. Unnoticed he watches the family life, which is miles apart from his, and fascinated by what he has seen, at the next occasion he stays hidden at the flats of the next bereaved people on purpose. Watching other peoples´ lives becomes a hobby and the hobby turns into a passion when he falls in love in one of the flats.

international title: The Cleaner
original title: Cistic
country: Slovakia
year: 2015
genre: fiction
directed by: Peter Bebjak
film run: 94'
screenplay: Peter Bebjak
cast: Noël Czuczor, Rebeka Poláková, Kamil Kollarik, Jana Oľhová
cinematography by: Martin Žiaran
film editing: Marek Kralovsky
music: Juraj Dobrakov
producer: Peter Bebjak
production: D.N.A. production, Studio 727
distributor: Bontonfilm

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