A CASE FOR AN EXECUTIONER'S TRAINEE

The film was made in 1969 in occupied Czechoslovakia and is based on the third book of Jonathan Swift’s „Gulliver’s travels“, in which Gulliver’s travels take him to peoples in far off places like Laputa and to Balnibarbi. The modern Gulliver finds himself in a present-day world which seems „normal“ but is full of absurdities: During a car ride, he gets lost on a road leading to nowhere and gets into an accident with a rabbit in human clothing – he is caught in one of Balnibarbi’s traps. He enters a ruin on a meadow which reminds him of his home and his school. It also makes him think of Margaret, whom he loved then and who had drowned herself. Suddenly she appears before him, though. He is shot at and chased and finally reaches the salon of professor Beiel who explains that everything he has been through hasn’t been a dream but is the actual reality. After a few screenings the film was forbidden due to its many references to the absurdities of life in an occupied country and could only be rereleased after the „Tender Revolution“ of 1989.