Summary
War as seen through a child’s eyes is a perspective that was often applied successfully in Czechoslovak cinematography. Director and screenwriter Antonín Máša took this path when in 1977 he filmed a drama based on his own ideas. Proč nevěřit na zázraky (Why Not Believe in Miracles?) takes place at the end of the Second World War in Southern Bohemia. The protagonist of the tale is 12-year old village boy Milda (Igor Nachtigal), who still kind of believes that his white goat Brůna will one day change into a horse. And he clings to this naïve wish throughout dramatic encounters with the SS and Russian cavalry officers…. During the years of “normalisation”, the films of the politically “unreliable” Máša – who was fired from Prague’s Barrandov film studios in 1971 – were realised only sporadically and under strict supervision. The original version of this film, which was heavily censored, never appeared in the cinemas. The biggest demanded change related to the ending in which the small hero was shot.
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