Ucho

may well be the most banned of all banned films in Czechoslovakia;the film was not included in Kachyna’s filmography until recently and waspremièred there only twenty years after its completion. is set in the highest Communist circles where an atmosphere of fear, mistrust and paranoiaruled under the guise of comradeship. A man and a woman, embroiled in an extremely painful and cynical marital crisis come home after a party and have lost their keys. It slowly dawns on them that their keys have been stolen and that their whole house is now bristling with listening devices. In the dark of the night after their wedding, of which the women should have known better than to have such high hopes, he burns all kinds of evidence that could be incriminating and hits the bottle. In the meantime, their verbal marital quarrels continue until a group of men spying on the house ring the doorbell. The man thinks he will be arrested and says farewell to his wife and sleeping child, but finds out that the men have come to continue their party. His mood changes instantly and they celebrate into the small hours in his well-filled kitchen.