On the Contrary, He Is Great!

In her first leading role, Lucie Benešová plays Svatka, a 13-year-old girl who moves into a new house in the Křivoklát region with her parents in 1951. Succumbing to peer pressure and official propaganda, she joins the Pioneer Youth Organisation, but has to keep it secret lest her conservative, bourgeois parents find out. Childhood friendships are disrupted by enmity between various parents, generated by class strife of the collectivisation era. Honza (René Brunč), the son of the communist chairman of the local National Committee, learns this firsthand when his best friend Karel (Jiří Petr) is shunned as the son of a “kulak” (a comparatively wealthy landowning peasant). Meanwhile, Svatka’s father learns he is about to be arrested for “illegal activities” and decides to leave the country… As director Radovan Urban’s first feature film, this 1987 teen movie presents an extremely one-sided and biased view of history that almost calls for a contemporary remake that would offer an alternate perspective.