Cesta zpátky
Directed by:
Václav KrškaScreenplay:
Pavel KohoutCinematography:
Jaroslav TuzarComposer:
Harry MacourekCast:
Eduard Cupák, Josef Vinklář, Jana Dítětová, Oldřich Slavík, Karel Máj, Karel Höger, František Vnouček, Bohumil Šmída, Václav Lohniský, Blanka Waleská (more)Plots(1)
Dan, Freddy and Carda are roaming about Prague thinking of how to get some money. They decide to break into the box-office of a cinema, but a passer-by interferes. Freddy loses his jacket in the fight, but all three young men escape at the end. Freddy is afraid to return home and is hiding at the docks. The police identify him from his papers, which they found in the jacket. At the docks Freddy meets the customs officer Tonka and stirs her to pity with a made-up story about a bullying father. The news about the death of the man with whom he had a fight, confirms Freddy in his belief that he has to keep on hiding. The police are looking for Freddy in the factory in which the three young men work. Carda wants to confess. Dan gets him drunk and challenges him to a motor race. Carda's motorbike crashes and he dies in the accident. Dan decides to get Freddy across the border with the help of his father. Tonka visits Freddy's father, discovers the truth and persuades Freddy to surrender to the police. Freddy refuses Dan's help and there is a fight. Freddy escapes and is going to surrender to the police. Dan's father sees the only possibility being to save his son by sending him across the border instead of Freddy. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (1)
After Khrushchev's exposure of the Stalinist cult of personality, the ice began to break very slowly, the building ethos in the films of the late 1950s began to gradually disappear, and Czech filmmakers tried to gradually "tread the terrain" and test what they could get away with. Lyricist Václav Krška came up with a theme that would have been completely unthinkable 5 years earlier: the clash of youth with the law. He invited his court actor Eduard Cupák, who together with Jana Brejchová was probably the biggest acting star of the young generation of the 50s. And everything came together nicely: the story of one crime and the subsequent gnawing guilt, the appealing atmosphere of the Holešovice harbour (seeing what Prague looked like 70 years ago is an experience in itself and it adds an extra layer to the film), and a nice period pop song by Josef Zíma, the impressive acting of the main duo, with Tonka (Jana Dítětová), interestingly combining decisiveness and over-sensitivity, and Freddy (Cupák) being a proper dork on the wrong track, who scolds Tonka, who is a few years older than him, while he teases him like a little boy. Perhaps only Josef Vinklář occasionally overdoes it with the expressiveness as the villain, but we're used to that by now. The open ending resonated with me, even though I didn't want it to.
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