Summary
Director Jiří Svoboda’s wartime psychological drama recalls the time when German occupying forces closed universities and students were forced to quickly find work and so often ended up in environments completely alien to them. One such student, František Cepek, instead of studying technology in Prague finds himself working in a factory as a day labourer. The sensitive, insecure young man comes under the influence of an older colleague, Hrabě, who draws the idealistic new recruit into a gang of thieves. František, nicknamed “Papilio” by his new companions, one day discovers that the self-serving Hrabě is trying to blackmail resistance fighters in their factory. This revelation forces the young man to become a false friend... Filip Renč plays the lead in this impressively conceived period drama from 1986. The part of the vile Hrabě went to Milan Kňažko.
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