Larks on a String

Larks on a String, another of Jiří Menzel's films based on stories by Bohumil Hrabal, is set in the steelworks of Kladno. The communist regime sent inconvenient political offenders there for compulsory work: rebellious intellectuals, believers from different churches and small tradespeople.

A former prosecutor, the young Adventist Pavel and his love Jitka, a prisoner, as well as the barber Kudla, all share their fate with the young guard Anděl. He also oversees the so-called hill women, women punished after trying to flee abroad. Friendship has its limits: neither justice nor help is available, while a fanatical youth leader presents the regime's enemies to children as despised exotic creatures. Things can always get worse, yet life remains strange and beautiful.