Pražská 5

Later life film? or Czech films that have kind of been forgotten II.

Directed by Tomas Vorel, Czechoslovakia 1988, 97 min.

Lecturer dr. Milan Šteindler, CSc. - With slicked back hair and very informal - he presents five film performances of young avant-garde theatres. In front of the lecturer stands a vase with five red carnations that are gradually fading. The guide is also losing his condition, his speech is no longer fluent, he has to look at his notes. Before the last story, he is already noticeably socially tired, dishevelled and stammering. His eyes well up with tears at the memory of the 1950s...
The film became a convincing demonstration of the potential of a number of personalities who were not so much cemented by their age as by the more relaxed atmosphere of the second half of the 1980s. It was precisely this that allowed artists with the most diverse talents to showcase their projects to the public. The freer approach of the state-run Barrandov dramaturgy then allowed the creation of a film that reckoned with the various taboos, restrictions and embarrassments of its time. And one cannot fail to mention the documentary significance of this experimental debut by Vorel.

Introduction by film historian Jan Lukeš, in original version.