Petr Skoumal

A recording of a theatre production directed by Jan Kačer from 1967.

Jan Kačer became known primarily as an actor, but he also took up film directing several times - not very successfully. Based on someone else's script, he made a committed, building story: it tells the story of an experienced engineer who is commissioned to assemble a team of specialists for engineering the peaceful use of atomic energy. However, the explanation of human dilemmas is too flat and proclamatory, as is the image of Ostrava's industrial environment; the heroes are thinking about one thing: the proper completion of the assigned task...

Even the pre-Blohemian times were not idyllic. Even a bachelor, invited by the consuls to Rakovník to elevate the local education system, finds out. But the stingy and proud townspeople soon grow to dislike him, and even love does not develop according to his wishes.

Two inseparable friends, Vyžilý and Boudník, a village self-made talent and a not-so-successful professional theatre actor, want to make a living as entertainers. But they are running up against both the ceiling of their abilities and the disfavour of the approval authorities. The normalization era of the 70s and 80s does not favour anything distinctive and both heroes repeatedly experience setbacks. Although the story of a lost generation was planned at the end of the former regime, it was not released until 1990.