Synopsis
Labour Day, 1986, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia.
Peter Zmazek (30); a metal worker, an honest and caring father of two children Jana (8) and Tomas (3) and a great believer in the socialist system, is finally allocated a socially owned apartment at the awards ceremony for the “Worker of the Year” in the metal factory “SocWorker”. Getting the apartment is such a big shock for Peter that he falls into a vegetative state in front of everyone and starts dreaming about his “socialist heaven”.
Shortly after that, since his mental state hasn’t changed at all, Peter is locked up in a mental institution but doctors don’t know how to help him. He can eat and sleep, but he doesn’t respond to the world around him. His wife Marica finds a job in the same factory. After more than ten years of waiting for Peter’s recovery, she looses all hope and marries Peter’s best friend Jovo, a Serbian. On the same day that Marica and Jovo are getting married, Peter recovers his mental capacity.
1997, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
When Peter wakes up, times have really changed. His wife has remarried his best friend, his children have grown up, and his country Yugoslavia has disappeared. Since he has nowhere else to go, Peter is now forced to live in his old apartment with Marica and Jovo, in an unusual threesome.
The outside world is an even bigger shock for him: there’s no more “socialist” Yugoslavia but a modern Slovenia, no more Communist Party, but mobile phones and commercials. Everybody is trying to become European; everybody wants to get rich overnight.
Since there is no job for the former worker of the year at the metal factory, now renamed “EuroChrome”, Peter takes his life into his own hands. He fights to get his family back, to find a job and to survive in the cruel world of “turbo capitalism” where nobody believes him or his “odd” values. In the end, Peter, who is considered mentally ill, seems to be the only normal person in the crazy world around him.
The State of Shock is a bittersweet comedy about capitalism and the transition of social values during the past 20 years which have completely transformed Eastern European countries. It’s a story about the feeling of losing and gaining the power of honesty.