Summary
For the broadest film audiences, the 1960s are always tightly bound to the Czechoslovak New Wave artistic movement in cinema. However, the period also produced genre films that endeavoured to offer a humorous approach to expressing a critical view of everyday reality under the socialist regime. Based on a script inspired by Jaroslav Dietl’s stage play (Dietl also contributed to the film screenplay), successful TV director František Filip created a 1965 satire about a lowly clerk who achieves a promotion thanks to a momentary absence of timidity. But Jan Vavřinec fails to achieve anything in his new post as his own personal courage is vastly insufficient when it comes to changing the prevailing state of affairs and, above all, the ways of those around him… The film, attractive for its formal elements, successfully utilises internal monologues in which the protagonist offers a detached commentary for his own actions. Rudolf Hrušínský is terrific in the title role and enjoys equally proficient support from Ladislav Pešek, Jiří Sovák and Vladimír Menšík.
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