Snapshots

It’s no great surprise that one of the first feature-length film portraits from the world of Czechoslovak rock centred on the mysterious, exuberant, original and extremely talented Dežo Ursiny. The Slovak rock poet died in 1995 aged forty-eight and only his music remains: albums he created together with poet Ivan Štrpka; a major reappraisal of his own work to date produced in the 1990s, towards the end of his life; and his early songs from the Sixties beat era when, from the age of eighteen, Dezider or Dežo Ursiny was one of the big names on the Czechoslovak scene together with the band The Beatmen. Dežo Ursiny’s sister speaks of a key episode in which he feigns a self-harming attempt, and actually ends up hurting himself. Co-band members Marián Varga, Jaro Filip and Andrej Šeban describe their memories of this scintillating yet insufferable person. Women, producers, children: various “snapshots” (the title of one of Ursiny’s albums) are pieced together to form a profile of an exceptional musician: from the bohemian years through asceticism to inner piece in anticipation of death.