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THE GREAT NIGHT

VELKA NOC

By Petr HATLE

NUTPRODUKCE (CZECH REPUBLIC) - as PROD

First film - Completed 2013

A documentary study of the modern-day phenomenon of night life and sleeplessness. Using authentic portraits of characters living in the dark “half-world” of Prague non-stop bars, gambler houses and night clubs, we map the living space and community of people of the “eternal night”.

- Year of production
- 2013
- Genres
- First film, Documentary
- Countries
- CZECH REPUBLIC
- Languages
- CZECH, ENGLISH
- Duration
- 72 mn
- Director(s)
- Petr HATLE
- Writer(s)
- Petr HATLE
- Producer(s)
- Pavla KUBECKOVA (nutprodukce), Tomas HRUBY (nutprodukce), Tereza POLACHOVA (HBO Europe)
- Synopsis
- A documentary study of the modern-day phenomenon of night life and sleeplessness. Using authentic portraits of characters living in the dark “half-world” of Prague non-stop bars, gambler houses and night clubs, we map the living space and community of people of the “eternal night”.
  The film is composed of portraits of several people, for whom such premises have become a natural living space, a safety beacon of light, where one is never truly alone. Sleeplessness, the inability to endure one’s own presence and the urge to meet with similarly afflicted individuals in these “bunkers”, also often simply the love of adventures of the night, criminal surroundings and drugs. The paradox situation of prolonging sleeplessness through the consumption of methamphetamines and other stimulants, deepening the paranoia of light and the world. Creation of a subculture with its own morals and philosophy.
  How does life in this opposite rhythm actually change a person? Sleeping during the day and living at night. The literary character of Babička in Božena Němcova’s novel said: “You should work during the day and sleep at night”, and was probably right. But who are those people that orderly citizens glimpse behind the dark glass of non-stop bars or hiding behind sunglasses in passageways?
  When Rimbaud was running away from Verlaine into the night underbelly of Paris, he drank with sleepwalkers and hookers, he didn’t sleep and raved with insanity; and on returning home through the streets in the light of morning he knew more than before. It isn’t in vain that we tell children: be home before dark! The night cracks open the door to our fears and anxieties; it chases us into the shelter of our homes lit by the rays of light bulbs and blinking monitors. When the light is switched off, we go to sleep. And while we sleep, there are stories and actions taking place in the streets, bars and apartments that could not happen during the day. While we sleep, the subculture of nocturnal birds lives its parallel day, it wanders, speaks and waits. But lovers also don’t sleep the entire night, because the night is theirs and the new day can rob them of everything.