Known for Acting
Loosely inspired by a real criminal court case. It took place in Prague and the Tatra Mountains between 1926 and 1928 and was later described as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, cases the pre-Munich Republic had ever seen. Nevertheless, the police and judiciary at the time failed to clarify and close the case in such a way that it would not raise legitimate questions long after the trial had ended. Even though the court handed down its verdicts, the case remained open in a way, and this is also reflected in the script, which remained faithful to the facts in its basic outline," says screenwriter Václav Šašek, author of the two-part television production The Trial of the Martyn Murderers...
This international co-production, shot at Barrandov Studios with international cast including Czech actors is an attempt to create a sci-fi fantasy in the tradition of Star Wars and Star Trek. Sometime in the distant future, several earthlings turn up on a strange planet ruled over by a despotic ruler with magic powers. A young earth-man initiates a successful uprising.
Young prisoner Jan, nicknamed Roughboy (Petr Cepek), tries to commit suicide. He was imprisoned for a fight in which he injured a functionary of the National Committee and for stealing material but actually by the blame for this crime was pinned on him by the road-builders in whose group he worked. The prison doctor knows that Jan is an emotionally deprived person who never knew his parents and spent all his childhood - except one year with foster-parents - in orphanages, homes for youth and reform schools. He arranges a five-day holiday for Jan, who wants to find his mother's grave.
The hero of the story is a forty-something intellectual, a sensitive composer of classical music. His exclusive profession, his work, which is actually incomprehensible to those around him, and his deep inner passion set him apart from the conformist milieu. Therefore, he tries to search for the "lark's silence" - a new strength, purity, truth, essence and roots of Czechism. However, on his return from the oppressive, alienated big city to his native village, to his former home, to nature, a deep disillusionment awaits him: he discovers that the once idyllic village has lost not only its face, but also any manifestation of spiritual life in its foolish attempt to resemble the city.
In 1866 the Prussians withdraw from the German alliance and declare war on Austria. A sergeant of this army forces a Czech young man named Ludvík Machl to execute himself by hanging. However, the unfortunate man's road to death had already begun earlier. Ludvík was one of the patriotic conspirators who, among other things, had seized money from the Austrian printing press. However, he was tracked down in his lodgings by the police, who discovered some of the looted money and a pistol. Unlike the three other conspirators, however, Commissioner Melc offers him his freedom - if Ludwig becomes an agent of the Austrian police. Frightened, Machl signs under duress...
