Summary
This raw, inconclusive story taking place in a remedial institution for troubled youths was among the films that ran afoul of the censors as early as 1968. The footage that director Hynek Bočan had shot was so provocative that work on the film was halted just before the final edit. The film did not take its final form until 1989 and appeared in cinemas a year later. The story’s protagonist is a young teacher in a small town who is obliged to go to work in a Prague borstal as a tutor. The primitive, crude wards frustrate his every attempt at normal communication. The strained relations come to a head around Christmas, when the teacher himself becomes a victim of bullies… this grim drama with Ivan Vyskočil in the lead role bears witness to the great talent of Bočan, who in following years did not have an opportunity to show it.
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