Deserter

Nazi imprisonment survivor Otto opens an upscale hair salon in the center of Prague where his wife and her sisters work. As his business gets underway, a looming darkness builds with the communists’ rise to power. The state expropriates Otto’s salon, putting a pompous young lad in charge. Soon it becomes apparent that Otto must disappear or risk losing his life. Will he ever find “home” again? Deserter is a tragicomic drama of harshly tested love between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and children. The film is part of director Jan Hřebejk’s Garden Store trilogy, following three families: an air radio operator, a hair salon owner, and a garden store proprietor against the backdrop of the most dramatic periods of the last century.