Summary
Experienced director Karel Kachyňa in 1972 shot another film in which a child hero is set against the epoch of the Second World War, this time based on a theme and screenplay by Oto Hofman. Kachyňa first offered the public an account of the war as seen through the eyes of children in the drama Práče (Slinger, 1960), and it was a theme he also revisited in Ať žije republika (Long Live the Republic!, 1965) and Smrt krásných srnců (Death of the Beautiful Deer, 1986). The hero of the poetic drama is little Dáša, who is sent by her mother to live with her grandfather in the Beskid Mountains to save her from the ever more frequent air raids on Prague. The girl soon befriends local children. When the nearby village is occupied by German soldiers, Dáša and her friend Franta decide to act. Their naïve courage inspires the adults to fight… Kachyňa also cast the leading actress, Zdeňka Smrčová, in his next feature films Pavlínka (Pauline, 1974), Čekání na déšť (Waiting for the Rain, 1978) and Láska mezi kapkami deště (Love between the Raindrops, 1979).
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