Roman Němec | O Otci (About a Father) / 2017

THE BACKCOUNTRY

by Douglas Messerli

 

Roman Němec (screenwriter and director) O Otci (About a Father) / 2017 [30 minutes]

 

Every year Jindrich (Antonín Procházka) takes two months off to escape alone to the family cottage in the rural Czech Republic, while his wife (Alena Mihulová) remains in the city; but this year he is having serious heart problems and is awaiting a heart transplant, and accordingly his wife has joined him at the country cottage in order to take care of him, making sure he gets the proper rest and medicines.

    And it is to that cottage where their son David (Jakub Krejca), a gay man out to his mother and most of his urban friends, takes his lover and now fiancée Adam (Jirí Vojta) for a visit, planning to not only introduce the handsome teacher to his family and but finally come out to his father simultaneously.

    Right from the start, however, things to not go quite as swimmingly as David has predicted. The two arrive drunk, sneaking up the creaking stairway to David’s bedroom. And the moment David goes off to the bathroom Adam suddenly realizes that he has to puke. He quickly opens the windows and vomits all over the immaculate roof. He picks up a glass of water in a futile attempt to wash it away, but it has utterly no effect. Now completely naked—inexplicably Adam has a predilection throughout this movie to undress and sneak downstairs to the kitchen for water or other needs—he makes his way down the creaky stairs and brings back a bucket a water, but still being quite inebriated, he trips, accidently dumping most of it on their bed, pouring out the rest on the rooftop, still without having much of an effect.

    The vomit, both below and rooftop, is what greets David’s mother as she scurries about her work early the next morning. But she is even more irritated by the fact that her son—who she argues feels he has to announce to world that he’s a homosexual—intends to tell his father as well as announce his upcoming marriage to Adam. She is terrified that the news might kill him, insisting that he wait until he gets a new heart. But his serious health problems, David argues, is precisely why he should tell him now, before something happens. David is convinced that it is important he know who and what his son is before he dies. But the mother is even more strongly convinced that there is no hurry to tell him, in fact, she quickly reveals that she feels there is no need to ever tell him, let alone the whole world to whom she perceives her son addressing in his revelations about his sexuality. She ascribes David’s need to tell his father and others who he is as being selfish, without recognizing that what she is actually revealing is all about herself, her deep-bred fears. In short, she is a homophobe, perfectly at home with people of the “backcountry.”

  And we soon get a glimpse of how the nice people of the beautiful Czech backcountry behave when David and Adam take a trip to get some provisions in the nearby village. In the grocery, a woman glares at the two, simply for their occasionally joyful laughing and, at one point, comparing the size of cucumbers. Even the girl at the cash register seems anxious for them to leave. At the local bar they are immediately attached by locals, who purposely spill the beer David has orders upon him; Adam, stepping up to protect him, is slugged and ends up with a bloody nose. The two immediately make a get-away on their bikes, stopping finally along the way home to release their emotions in a field, David, jocularly commenting: “Welcome to the backcountry.”

  And we soon get a glimpse of how the nice people of the beautiful Czech backcountry behave when David and Adam take a trip to get some provisions in the nearby village. In the grocery, a woman glares at the two, simply for their occasionally joyful laughing and, at one point, comparing the size of cucumbers. Even the girl at the cash register seems anxious for them to leave. At the local bar they are immediately attached by locals, who purposely spill the beer David has orders upon him; Adam, stepping up to protect him, is slugged and ends up with a bloody nose. The two immediately make a get away on their bikes, stopping finally along the way home to release their emotions in a field, David, jocularly commenting: “Welcome to the backcountry.”

     They return home and have glorious sex. Soon after, David asks for some water, Adam once more attempting to sneak down utterly naked, now in late evening, to bring his lover a drink, but the father still up reading calls out for Adam to bring him a drink as well, and the boyfriend, grabbing up a hand towel, finds himself suddenly sitting across from his future-father-in-law having an intense conversation about a familiar literature figure. The two seem to carry on their conversation deep into the night, David sneaking down to observe them in an intense discussion, smiling with delight.

    A day or so later, for reasons unexplained, the mother has determined for travel back to the city with David a day, and now intends to put Adam in charge of her husband, explaining to him the dosages of nitrates and other medicines and the possibility of the call from the hospital that they have found an appropriate heart.

    The minute they depart, however, Jindrich pulls out his rucksack, and refusing to hear any of Adam’s arguments against his plans hike to the nearest small and isolated castle, a site that was involved in one of the fictions they had been discussing the other night. Try as he might, Adam cannot intervene in Jindrich’s jaunt up the mountains, the elderly man insisting that given the glorious weather and the chance to again commune with nature is not only rejuvenating but a true tonic.

    They visit the Houska castle and the elder explains its history, fascinated by the fact that there was no reason for it being constructed in the spot where it exists, no roads leading to it, no land to protect, and, most importantly, no source of water.

    It’s a truly lovely adventure for both men; but on the way back, Jindrich grows tired, Adam suggesting that they rest. But while Adam prepares the nitrate pill, Jindrich passes out. An air ambulance is called, and by the time that David and his mother can return, the father has died, the mother blaming Adam, as we might expect, for the outcome.

    David, while remaining supportive of his lover, is still saddened by his failure to reveal himself to his father. But in closing up some business he comes across a letter in his father’s desk addressed to him. In it the father expresses his earlier worry that his son seemed to be lost and confused about his future; but praises the fact that he is now found a good mate with whom he can spend the rest his life, and he is assured of his son’s happiness in his life ahead. As he writes: “I am at peace and happy that you have become such a loving, sensitive, and thoughtful man.”

    In short, either the father has been far more aware than the others had given him credit or Adam and he had discussed other matters than literature than night as the boy sat naked across from him. David need no longer wonder what would have his father thought of him since he now knows of not only his gather’s awareness but of his total acceptance, apart from what his mother might think.

    Given the various levels of homophobia in this work, it is remarkable that David’s father has stood apart from the world around him. We can well understand why each summer, Jindrich was delighted to get away from it all and live a life alone and apart in the country cottage, with the freedom to explore his own thoughts and pleasures in the surrounding countryside, which despite its bigoted residents is a beautiful spot.

    And in the end, it is not David who shocks his 60-year-old father, but the father who amazes the somewhat doubtful son.

 

Los Angeles, November 23, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2025).