Melancholy

Before the charming Sisi was betrayed by her own body, a promising modelling career lay ahead of her. But instead of instant happiness in the limelight and in a relationship with a successful photographer, she gradually sinks into isolation in her rented flat. The world around her becomes a distant backdrop, and her mental horizons are increasingly consumed by thoughts of her mother, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Will she find herself during lonely walks along the Vltava, or at the wild premiere of the experimental play, You Cannot Step Into the Same River Twice, where, in a revelry of masks, it is possible to become someone else? From a distance, someone compulsively circles Sisi. Unlike her, they do not live for the outside world, but are turned inwards, to a self full of dark shadows. They would like to return to the point before their life began to unravel in suffocating emptiness. They delve into memories of decadent evenings in a house by the cemetery, which lead them to a place where their paths might cross. Is there any point in asking whether to live for the shared values of the outside world or for the satisfaction of inner needs, when in the end we are all heading in the same direction? The publication of this book was financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.