Summary
Surrendering to political pressure in the 1970s, the fiction writer Vladimír Páral abandoned the critical standpoints that featured so strongly in his earlier works. He thus launched his “White Pentalogy” with the novel Mladý muž a bílá velryba (The Young Man and the White Whale, 1973), a work that was transformed into an eponymous film five years later with experienced director Jaromil Jireš behind the camera. The narrative takes place in a chemical plant in Ústí nad Labem where a pretty and manipulative chemical engineer Edita Beningerová secures a job. She has taken the position in order to verify her theories by putting them into practice with the assistance of her ex-husband and chemistry scientist Viktor Panc. Viktor’s young housemate, shift foreman Břeťa Laboutka, falls under the woman’s spell with fateful consequences. The film also lends a prominent role to the symbolic story of the white whale. This amplifies Břeťa’s yearning for a big life achievement. Jireš and his team produced a film that stood head and shoulders above the period’s average fare. It showcased stars such as Jana Brejchová, Eduard Cupák and Ivan Vyskočil.
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