Summary
In 1968, director Karel Kachyňa and screenwriter Jan Procházka completed this low-key film built around a confrontation between two characters at odds in terms of generation, social status as well as personal traits. Ageing lorry driver Hubert Cmíral (Vlado Müller) is teamed up with a new driving mate, 21 year-old Alžběta (Pavla Kárníková). The flippant and ill-mannered girl has spent time in a correctional facility prompting conservative Hubert to attempt fatherly guidance and re-education. Rebellious Alžběta comes to understand that the man’s stern outside shell hides a kind, if traumatised soul. The incongruous pair of loners gradually find their way towards each other… The intimate psychological drama, shot by director of photography Josef Pávek in black and white, is an unjustly neglected work by Kachyňa. The film delivers a timeless message set firmly in the period of its making, thus providing a filmed testimony of the harsh realities of rural life in the 1960s.
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