Sometimes all it takes is one evening, one bar and a handful of people who would never otherwise share a table. That is the whole of this film, newly released in a digital restoration, and it is also the quiet beginning of one of the best loved acting careers in Czechoslovak cinema.
Before Tonight Is Over (Kým sa skončí táto noc, 1965) was directed by Peter Solan and set in a mountain hotel bar high in the High Tatras. The company that gathers there is one nobody would have put together on purpose: two office workers, a crew of plumbers, their site foreman, and a man with a past he would rather not discuss. At first it is an ordinary evening of music and drinks. As the night wears on, the lightness drains away and each of them lays their hopes, illusions and disappointments on the table.
For its time it was a bold experiment. Solan shot with several cameras at once and with contact sound, and instead of fixed dialogue the actors improvised around the situation of each scene. The result feels close to documentary, as though the camera had simply pulled up a chair at the next table and listened.
And it is here, in one of those voices, that you first see Marián Labuda. He was twenty, he played Miloš, and it was his very first film role; Stano Dančiak landed his first major screen part in the same picture. Both would go on to become faces without which Czechoslovak comedy is unimaginable. Among the Slovak cast there is also the Czech actress Jitka Zelenohorská, whom the whole world would see a year later in Closely Watched Trains.
The new edition was prepared by the Slovak Film Institute from a digitally restored black and white print. The disc also carries three short films from the 1950s and 1960s, a 2020 interview about the film, and a booklet. The film has Slovak audio and English subtitles, so you can share it with friends who do not speak Slovak.
🎬 Before Tonight Is Over is available here on Blu-ray.
👉 Fond of the Slovak sixties? Read our article about Nylon Moon as well.
