directed by Jiøí Menzel, tragicomedy, 90 min, eng subtitles
web
trailer ES
trailer CZ
director
Intellectuals, entrepreneurs and the faithful are forced to work together at the Kladno steelworks during the 1950s, a time of unyielding communism. Politically “unreliable” men as well as women and young girls who attempted to flee abroad are forced to serve out their punishment in the scrap yard.
The film is made up of a series of situations, sometimes humorous, at other times touching or absurd, but always graceful and deeply human. The imagery of enormous, faceless pieces of iron in the scrap yard and the fragile human beings who move between them is a metaphor for the relationship between totalitarian power and the individual who, in one way or another, breaks rank. The film is based on one of the best testimonies of the difficult period of the 1950s. It was filmed in 1969 by Jiøí Menzel and was based on the stories of Bohumil Hrabal. The film was banned immediately after it was finished and was put away under lock and key, where it waited twenty long years before it could be shown to audiences.
Awards:
Berlin International Film Festival 1990 (Golden Bear)
Plus de détails en français ici