Return of the Prodigal Son

This 1966 psychological drama affirmed director Evald Schorm’s position as one of the most individual filmmakers of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Jan Kačer gives a brilliant performance as the film’s tragic protagonist. Architect Jan Šebek seems to have everything yet he’s still tormented by existential dilemmas that drive him to a suicide attempt. Unfortunately, a subsequent sojourn in a mental hospital does not help Jan deal with his feelings of alienation and insecurity, or his inability to communicate… Unlike other stories about alienated intellectuals, made around the same time by such filmmakers as Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman, Návrat ztraceného syna (The Return of the Prodigal Son) depicts a “morally diseased man”, whose story reflects Schorm’s own scepticism towards the hopeful mood in society, culminating in the period of liberalisation known as the Prague Spring.