Face behind the Glass

Director Hynek Bočan and Moravian writer Jan Kostrhun first teamed up in 1979 while making an adaptation of the novella Černé ovce (Black Sheep). They went on to create feature films such as Pytláci (Poachers, 1981) and Vinobraní (The Grape Harvest, 1982). Their motion picture Tvář za sklem (The Face behind the Glass) saw the return of Bočan to filmmaking –after his political opinions caused him to fall into disfavour at Prague’s Barrandov film studios, he suffered a ban. Using the format of a family drama, he was permitted to touch on a taboo theme of the 1950s, which the film industry commissioners – viewing things through the lens of the period of “normalisation” – addressed with ideologically distorted points of view. The dignified hero of Tvář za sklem is a father, Tůma (Miroslav Macháček), who opposed “collectivisation” and ended up in jail after murdering a communist agitator. Tůma´s son (Jaromír Hanzlík) – now the chairman of an agricultural collective – tries to build a relationship with his alienated father. And he will succeed, largely because this explosively dramatic story was obliged to have an optimistic outcome.