The State of Shock

Synopsis

The first of May or Labour Day, 1986, Ljubljana. Metalworker Peter Zmazek is awarded a title "the worker of the Year" at the factory Udarnik (Shock-Worker) and in addition to that - an apartment from the social housing fund. He is so overwhelmed that he falls into a state of shock and remains in a daze; nobody can help him to wake up. Peter ends up in a psychiatric institution, dreaming his dream of communist paradise for full ten years. In the meantime, the state, the political (communist) system and his family fall apart. Peter wakes up the very moment when his former wife Marica marries his best friend, Jovo. When Peter shows up at the wedding party, a bitter-sweet comedy of confusions begins. The protagonist confronts a completely different world dominated by modern technologies, suspicious businessmen and newborn politicians.

Will Peter be able to regain his job, his family and his pride – everything that he has been robbed of? Will he be able to adapt to the world so different from the one he knew?

The State of Shock is a bitter comedy from New Europe about transition, family, friendship, lost ideals and about the power of an individual to beat the system.

director's statement

The idea to make such a film occurred to me a few years ago, when I was watching a TV news report on Labour Day celebrations in a democratic Slovenia. Those celebrations looked pretty miserable and I wondered how a proud proletarian from the previous system, to whom Tito, red flags and the cult of work truly meant something, would react to them.

This thought inspired me to develop the basic plot that by itself offered a myriad of comical tangles. However, my intention was not to simply write a comedy, but to show the fallacies and delusions that we had witnessed over the last twenty years, during the period of so called transition. Therefore, the film does not simply describe the current situation that Slovenes are faced with, but it attempts to capture the experience of the entire post-socialist bloc. The film comes to theatres at a time when financial foundations of the Western civilization are wobbling because of numerous frauds committed by corrupted individuals, by banks and even by national economies, and in some countries the frustration and anger among people may even lead to a revolution.

Is the capitalism we experience today, especially we, who live in so-called "new" Europe, really the best variety of capitalism? Why do we need to repeat all the mistakes and experience all the delusions that other, older Western democracies have already experienced? Have we really become so heartless that the only value that is left today is the financial power of an individual? And where along that road has mutual solidarity got lost?

Andrej Košak