A train stops, a woman falls, and trust becomes the deadliest weapon in occupied Prague.
The drama from the time of the Nazi occupation begins at the train station, where a transport with German soldiers is passing. The train is stopped due to improvised sabotage by one of the railway workers. Resistance liaison Růžena Kubínová is arrested in a random raid. The cynical councilor Dönnert discovers her false documents and has her brutally interrogated. He suspects that she could contribute to exposing the entire group. He puts a informant, Herta, in her cell.
Acting
Chramostová's silent defiance speaks volumes.
Direction
Frič turns cramped spaces into psychological battlefields.
Writing
Informant dynamics that predates every prison thriller since.
Director
Martin Frič
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during peak Stalinist censorship, this was one of few Czech films allowed to critique Germans while carefully avoiding any Soviet parallel. The regime missed the irony entirely.
Vlasta Chramostová would later become a dissident signatory of Charter 77; her real-life resistance made this performance almost documentary. She was banned from acting for two decades.
XC
