Case for a Rookie Hangman

(Případ pro začínajícího kata)
(A New Gulliver)

Digital Restoration

featuring

Lubomír Kostelka, Pavel Landovský, Klára Jerneková, Milena Zahrynowská,

Like the short The Uninvited Guest (screening February 12), Case for a Rookie Hangman is an allegory of life in socialist Czechoslovakia whose allusion to uncomfortable truths caused it to be “banned forever.” This is the final feature by writer-director Juráček, who contributed much to the successes and embodied the spirit of the Czech New Wave. For his imaginative film, Juráček adapted part three of Gulliver’s Travels into a sci-fi journey through the familiar landscapes of a socialist state, transformed into an unsettling new world for discovery by (in the film’s alternate title) a “New Gulliver.”

Gabriel M. Paletz
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Pavel Juráček
Cinematographer
  • Jan Kališ
Language
  • Czech
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 102 mins
Source
  • Národní Filmový Archiv and State Cinematography Fund