Summary
The Czechoslovakian censor was not slow to stir when it came to Jewish topics in newly produced films. Given this daunting difficulty, writer and director Jiří Krejčík omitted some motifs when it came to transferring to film Píseň Juditina (Judith´s song), a 1969 detective novel by Pavel Dejl (the artist’s pseudonym of Pavel Hejcman), which features a Jewish organisation pursuing Nazi criminals. The trade-off meant Krejčík’s 1972 motion picture, Podezření (Suspicion), avoided a production ban. But even this compromise did not allow him to continue unhindered in his filmmaking amid the restrictive era of “normalisation”. Podezření’s protagonist Klára Bornová is traumatised by her war experiences. She does not even feel safe as the wife of a Prague diplomat. And, as it happens, with justification, her husband is murdered by former Nazis. Bornová recognises one of them as Gill, the commander of the Dutch concentration camp. Slovak television announcer Jarmila Koštová stars in this improbable tale.
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