Summary
The personality of early twentieth century writer Karel Čapek had for a very long time not received the reflection it deserved in Czechoslovak film. Just prior to the 1989 “Velvet Revolution”, the difficult task of encapsulating the writer’s life was taken on by director Štěpán Skalský. Although his motion picture, conceived as the fragmentary memories of a sick writer, did not get its premiere until 1990, Člověk proti zkáze (Man versus Ruin, 1989) is a good example of a work that mirrored the relaxation of censorship at the start of the 1990s, demonstrated by the fact that the character of Čapek’s close friend – President Masaryk – appears in the story. The character of Masaryk had otherwise been anxiously avoided by domestic cinematography for whole decades. The focal role of the film is played by Josef Abrhám, who performs the character of Čapek with a humane credibility as well as exceptional professional application.
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