A child's observation of the last days of the war in a Moravian village offers a particular kind of realism that is decidedly lacking in sentimentality; that is an adult preoccupation. This is a portrait of war as the ultimate totalitarian experience, inspiring cowardice, treachery and occasional heroics in a frightened populace. In combining the epic feel of Cinemascope with the controlled chaos of an extraordinarily fluid camera, Karel Kachyna's film achieves an almost magical transformation of perceived truth into emotional truth. For twelve-year-old Oldra (Zdenek Lstiburek), "the biggest jackasses in all of Europe" are a gruesome foursome of lads who delight in tormenting him; by film's end, having watched the adults in his village jockey for position in relation to the retreating Germans and the Russian liberators, his horizons have been considerably expanded. This film of rare beauty has a circular structure of memory and its breakdown in the moment, as images from Oldra's short life are re-edited by present experience. His brutal father is revealed as a hypocrite as well; his one idol-a middle-aged man who nourishes Oldra's love of animals along with his own-is seen crushed by the greed of his neighbors. Only his own need for maternal affection keeps his mother pure and detached. Kachyna's work in collaboration with the writer Jan Prochazka represents the political commitment of the older generation of directors who dealt increasingly with taboo subjects.