Taking Refuge in the Wind

During the 1960s, experienced documentary filmmaker Václav Táborský made two narrative feature-films. Yet both Útěk do větru (Taking Refuge in the Wind, 1965) and Zázračný hlavolam (The Miraculous Brain Teaser, 1967) contain documentary elements. Sheila Ochová, the London-born daughter of wartime Czech exiles, co-wrote the screenplay with Táborský. The protagonists of the story are three 15-year-old boys, whose problems with truancy spiral out of control. Consequently, they run away from home and try to stand on their own two feet. Before being tracked down by the police, they find work in a JZD agricultural cooperative, thus proving that they can get by without the desultory care offered by their inattentive parents. Even in this fictional tale with a moral at the end, director Táborský pays close heed to authenticity, ensured partly by casting non-actors Michal Wiener, Pavel Pátek and Tomáš Novák in the leading roles.