For me, a coming of age story is only as effective as the young actor who is... well, coming of age. Four Suns sports a fantastic turn from its main character, Vena, played by Marek Sacha, as well as a host of other terrific performances.
Set in the Czech Republic, Four Suns is an intimate portrait of a divided family: a pot-smoking father, an unfaithful wife and a son slowly drifting into apathy and rebellion. As the film goes on and these complex relationships grow even more complicated, you start to really care about the family as a whole, finding reasons to like and hate each of them as you sympathize with their actions. There is a certain tension in the situations that director Sláma sets his characters in, often forcing the players into confrontation with one another, with no ammo other than the secrets they know about each other. There's a really weird metaphysical/road trip element to the film that didn't work at all for me, but something tells me that something was lost in the translation from Czech culture.
I realize this review sounds very vague, but I don't want to give away many of the twists the film takes. It's not a complicated movie. In fact, it's very simple. It's just the story of a family... one very interesting family.
Four Suns is competing in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
