How Poets Lose Their Illusions

Two years after their hit romantic comedy Jak svět přichází o básníky (How the World Loses Poets) (1982), director Dušan Klein and screenwriter Ladislav Pecháček returned to their hero Štěpán Šafránek. The first film introduced him as an idealistic 18-year-old, leaving secondary school and taking a real-life graduation exam in the form of a relationship with the attractive Borůvka. Follow-up Jak básníci přicházejí o iluze (How Poets Lose Their Illusions) finds the protagonist and his pal Kendy at the start of their student lives in Prague. Štěpán enrols in medicine while his pal goes to FAMU to study direction. While the bohemian Kendy handles university, Štěpán has trouble keeping up with his demanding course. In addition, the money his mother gives him is insufficient and he is forced to take part-time work at the hospital. It is there that he encounters a secondary medical school student whom he gives the pet name of Little Cave (Adriana Tarábková). Motivated by adoration, Štěpán succeeds – in spite of his love rival Dr. Fast – in passing a dreaded anatomy exam. Like the protagonist’s first romance, this affair concludes with something of a cold awakening. However, Štěpán moves forward in life with an indomitable, slightly bitter optimism… In the follow-up an eternally wide-eyed, boyish outlook becomes the hallmark of the hero, portrayed by Pavel Kříž. Alongside Štěpán and the pragmatic Kendy, Klien and Pecháček expanded their portfolio with characters that they frequently drew on in subsequent parts of the “Poets pentalogy”: a carefree African nicknamed Mireček (Joseph Dielle), the jovial Moravian Venoš (Václav Svoboda), the good-hearted, libidinous Vendulka (nicknamed The Comforter) and the swot Honza (Karel Roden). Zdeněk Svěrák also appears in the episodic role of Assistant Professor Zajíc, who lectures students on the sure-fire methods of fictitious German scientist Enrich Bronštejn (1904–1969) in a seminar on systematic desk arrangement.