Changing the social-realist and anecdotal approach from his first two films for a more daring, expressive style, in Skid Brynych and co-author Pavel Kohout created a psychologically rich spy film that is set in transit between West Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Czech immigrant Frantisek Král has a terrible car accident in West Berlin. The West German secret service immediately takes advantage of the situation, provides him with a new identity and starts training Král, who is suffering from partial amnesia, to become a spy and to get hold of a microfilm from Prague. At first everything goes according to plan, but when he realises his home town is anything but the dreary, suffering place that had been drummed into him, things move in a different direction …
After 1969, Brynych filmed mostly in West Germany, and Kohout (co-founder of Charta ’77) had his citizenship revoked for his part as one of the spokesmen for the Prague Spring.
Film details
- Country of production
- Czech Republic
- Year
- 1960
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2019
- Length
- 105'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
