Totem, Taboo and Angels

A boys’ class reunion, years later, in a flat. Their former class teacher (Marta Vančurová) arrives. But nobody suspects that the bundt cake baked by the hero’s girlfriend contains a certain hallucinogenic mixture. The party culminates in the collective rape of the teacher. Was it reality or a vision? And how will our “hero” come to terms with it…?

The television drama Totem, Taboo and Angels was made as a fourth-year graduation work at the FAMU Department of Directing.

Bound by the unity of time, place and action, the story follows one day in the life of a young man and his relationships with his girlfriend, his peers and authorities both personal and impersonal (parents, teachers, morality, God). At its centre are a school reunion years later and one bundt cake.

The pursuit of perfection at work, applied to life, risks cold disdain, hypocrisy or intolerance. The film also explores the tension between authority and naturalness, God and sexuality, and social and personal rituals. It is partly inspired by Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo.