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Bookmark this pageA Case for a Young Hangman (1969)
Director: Pavel Jurácek
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Made during the '68 crisis, this allegorical satire updates Swift (Gulliver's travels to Laputa and Balnibarbi) and Lewis Carroll, presenting an episodic account of the 35-year-old hero's nightmare journey to a world which he encounters on the other side of a road tunnel. No surprise to discover that it's very much like contemporary Czechoslovakia. Here is absurdity, transgression, jet-black comedy and the unexplained. Shot using graphic inserts, split images, slo-mo and fish-eye lenses, it recreates the mood of Kafka-esque paranoia that writer/director Jurácek had used more directly in his earlier Joseph Kilián. If its abundant allusions and cross-references are difficult to decipher for the uninitiated, the Czech censors had no such problems - they promptly banned it for 20 years.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Pavel Jurácek
Cast: Lubomir Kostelka, Milena Zahrynovska, Klara Jernekova, Miroslav Machacek, Slavka Budínová full cast
Genre(s): Fantasy
Duration: 102 mins
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