Half Past Three ratings (Movie, 2006)

A striking film about rich life in the poor district of Rachov in Sub-Carpathian Ukraine. Here people do not watch the clocks too closely, perhaps because time stood still here a long while ago and even the break-up of the Soviet Union never really gathered much pace. In this feature-length documentary the talented young director Tomá Hodan discovers in this region people who know how to live life to the full, accepting life's positives and negatives completely naturally, people who would no doubt find it hard to live elsewhere. Thanks to his open approach he succeeded in developing an unusually affectionate connection to his ordinary heroes, who in turn provided him with the material for an amusing and at times extremely funny picture. Their individual stories gently reveal a certain absurdity of history, which always influences ordinary people in some way.