Summary
For his 1987 drama adaptation of a novel by Stanislav Vácha, which takes place in an engineering office, film director Julius Matula managed to put together a strong cast. It included the likes of Marek Vašut, Ivana Chýlková, Karel Roden, František Němec and Boris Rösner. The main character is Jaroš (Vašut), a young engineer who accepts a job offer from the highly successful JZD Podhůra collective enterprise (modelled after the real Slušovice collective). While he is given the opportunity to implement his own innovation, this comes at the price of difficult working conditions – Jaroš even has to learn to work with the computer during the night time. His efforts notwithstanding, he finds himself dropping ever deeper in the company rankings. The collective's impersonal modern methods don’t suit him – and not just him… This intriguing period film foreshadows problems less adaptive individuals have to grapple with in the “freedom” of present-day capitalist society.
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