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.
It is 1951, and Advocate Černý with his wife and thirteen-year old daughter Svatka move from Prague to his villa near Křivoklát castle. The pretty girl attracts her schoolmate Honza, the son of the communist chairman of the local Municipal National Committee, and they become friends. Honza's best friend Karel íma is the son of a farmer who refuses to enter the Standard Farming Cooperative. The fathers' different political views hamper the relationships between the boys and their disputes sometimes even grow into fights. Svatka returns Honza's affection and even kisses him. The members of the Czechoslovak Socialist Youth Movement invite the pupils of the local school to the Young Pioneers organization and most of the children become members. Svatka, too, takes the vow but she carefully conceals it from her snobbish mother and conservative father. She and the other Pioneers travel around the district and sing committed socialist songs. At home, she pleads choir rehearsals. When the Communists try to establish the Standard Farming Cooperative in the village, the farmers throw the agitprops into a pond. But the wet activists take it with detachment. Lawyer Černý receives some information from Prague that he is in danger of arrest for his reported illicit activities. He thus does not hesitate to take the family and illegally leave the Czechoslovak Republic. Svatka only manages to hide a farewell letter for Honza in a shelter where she used to keep her Pioneer scarf. Honza also loses Karel. His father was proclaimed a kulak, the farm is nationalized and the family is moved out. The villa left by the Černýs' now serves as a harvest lodging.
The film was awarded the first prize in the competition organized on the occasion of an anniversary of establishing the Young Pioneers Organization.
Svatka Černá
Honza Polcr
Karel Šíma
předseda MNV Jindřich Polcr, Honzův otec
sedlák Šíma, Karlův otec
advokát JUDr. Lubomír Černý, Svatčin otec
Černá, Svatčina matka
oddílová vedoucí Žeňka
svazák
převozník Kos
farář
Růžena
Mirek Kořán
Polcrová, Honzova matka
Šímová, Karlova matka
Kořán, Mirkův otec
Kořánová, Mirkova matka
učitel Pressl
sedlák Topinka
bubeník Šnobr
Staňková
tajemník
agitátor
hostinský
majitel hořícího statku
učitelka
kluk Nudle
kluk Kodým
Mazánek
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
kaskadér
Dana Šomková, Josef Basakin
Lubomír Moravec
Jiří Forst, Jan Hodný, Milan Šilha
Vlasta Synkulová, Lev Veltrubský
Eduard Zanner, Jelínek Rudolf (2)
Michal Krška, M. Gardoň, Jana Paparčíková, Alena Kravková, Zdeněk Vávra, K. Chyška
Proč se tě máma dál už neptá, Kamarádi, Noční motýl, Pochod rudých námořníků, Na tu svatú Katerinu, Se zpěvem a smíchem
Martin Kratochvíl (Proč se tě máma dál už neptá), Miroslav Juchelka (Kamarádi) (instrumentace), Johann Strauss ml. (Noční motýl), lidová gruzínská píseň, Josef Stanislav (Se zpěvem a smíchem)
Josef Novotný (Proč se tě máma dál už neptá), K. M. Walló (Noční motýl), Josef Urban (2), Olga Rambousková (Se zpěvem a smíchem)
Lucie Benešová [dab] (Proč se tě máma dál už neptá), Lucie Bílá (Proč se tě máma dál už neptá), Jiří Vondráček (Proč se tě máma dál už neptá), Míla Spazierová-Hezká (Noční motýl), dětský sbor (Pochod rudých námořníků), dětský sbor (Na tu svatú Katerinu), dětský sbor (Se zpěvem a smíchem)
Náhodou je príma!
On the Contrary, He Is Great!
1987
1987
01.02.1988
35mm
Czech