Adapted from the novel by Vincent aikula, Elo Havetta’s film is set in the years following the First World War. Soldiers are returning home, affected in both body and mind, living as tramps and beggars. The undergraduate theologian Krujbel and clarinettist Hejgea wander around their homeland and try unsuccessfully to put down roots. Like Juraj Jakubisko, Havetta draws on sources in naive painting and folk culture but is influenced primarily by the nostalgic tone of ‘old photographs which, in our childhood, we had seen being taken from soldiers’ old wooden suitcases . . .’ In presenting the psychological aftermath of war, Havetta emphasises close-ups and an approach based on an almost musical sense of construction.
Czechoslovakia [Slovakia], 1972. English subtitles. Black and white with tints. 87 min.