Czech filmmaker Jiri Menzel directs this comedy drama set in a labour camp in 1950s Communist-run Prague. The film tells the stories of the various characters interned in the labour camp-cum-scrapyard, who have been deemed counter-revolutionary and 'bourgeois' by the Czech government and are now forced to spend their days sorting out piles of scrap metal for the purposes of 're-education'. As they toil, the workers - who include a literature professor, a public prosecutor, a dairyman, a saxophonist, a barber and a cook - philosophise and flirt amid the detritus of industrial society. Although shot in 1969, the film was banned by the Czech government until the fall of the Communist regime in 1990.
- Region Code:
- Region A,B,C
- Duration:
- 95 minutes
- Original Language:
- Czech
- Extras:
- Language(s): Czech, Subtitles: English, Interactive Menu, Screen ratio 1:1.66, Mono, Booklet, Bonus Footage, Commentary: Audio commentary with Mike White and Jonathan Owen., Documentaries: 'Jiri Menzel: 7 Questions'; Jiri Menzel in discussion with filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur., 'Our Dear Mister Foerster Died' (1963): a restored early short film by Jiri Menzel., Trailers