People and Sausages (1948)

Directed by Pavel Blumenfeld

If you think shopping malls are crowded, you probably haven’t experienced a Prague canteen in the late 1940s. Two thousand hot dogs sold every day, two thousand human faces and destinies. This film essay presents Prague’s vending machines, snack bars, and cheap cafeterias as a mini-zoo crowded with human specimens. They fight for space, food, or a loving embrace under the microscope of a comically touching director, searching for a theme.