The documentary essay Jan Palach 69 is an emotional testimony of several days in January 1969, in which all people in Czechoslovakia were deeply affected by the self-immolation of Jan Palach. The huge wave of grief and desperate helplessness, manifested by the unprecedented turnout at Palach's funeral, was also the last nationwide protest against the "temporary stay of allied troops" and the upcoming normalization. – After Palach's self-immolation and his death three days later, just like in August 1968, the cameraman Stanislav Milota and his colleagues went to the streets to capture the unique atmosphere of national grief and human participation in the time just before the funeral. They mainly capture the long queues of people waiting to pay their respects at the displayed coffin, and the mass celebrated for the dead student. The cameraman worked with a wide-angle lens with a focal length of 9.8 mm, i.e. a so-called fisheye (he tried working with it on the film The Cremator), which he alternated with a telephoto lens for details of faces. The very use of this technique foreshadows that this is not a factual news documentary, but a unique work of art, which has significant aesthetic value in addition to historical value. This is significantly enhanced by the fact that instead of the recorded sound or commentary, only excerpts from the compositions of Leoš Janáček and Antonín Dvořák are used in the film. – The picture was taken during the hectic events, when the State Security (StB) was already controlling everything that was happening around the funeral. Before the State Security could intervene, two copies were created. One was exported by Stanislav Milota to Israel and donated to the National Film Archive in Tel Aviv, the other was well preserved for thirty-three long years in the National Film Archive in Prague. In 2002, it was provided with several subtitles and was shown publicly for the first time on Czech television on the thirty-fourth anniversary of Jan Palach's death. – In addition to the Stanislav Milota and Jaromír Kallista, the credits of the eight-minute work also include the then director of the Barrandov Film Studio Vlastimil Harnach, who played a part in its creation (provided the camera, material, and laboratories) and who, like his two colleagues, had to, among other things, leave the Barrandov studio when the normalization started. According to Milota's testimony, other people also participated in the making of the film: camera assistant Bohumil Rath, editor Miloslav Hájek and director Vladimír Sís. – In the introduction the film is presented as “Jan (69)”.
The film was presented in January 2004 as an intoductory film to the feature film The Cremator (1968; dir. Juraj Herz).
Vlastimil Harnach (podíl na vzniku filmu – zajištění kamery, materiálu a laboratoří)
Leoš Janáček (Po zarostlém chodníčku /druhá věta Lístek odvanutý/), Antonín Dvořák (Rekviem, opus 89 /první věta Rekviem Aeternam/)
Česká filharmonie (Music Conducted by Karel Ančerl), Pražský filharmonický sbor, Ilja Hurník /klavír/
Jan 69
Jan 69
Jan Palach 1969
film
documentarytheatrical distribution
political, essay
Czechoslovakia
1969
1969
premiere 15 January 2004 /suitable for all ages/
Project 100 – 2004.
Jaromír Kallista, Filmové studio Barrandov (spolupráce)
Národní filmový archiv (Projekt 100 – 2004)
short film
8 min
223 meters
35mm
1:1,37
black & white
sound
mono
Czech
without dialogue
without subtitles
Czech
