We only have a few films from the 1950s at Film Wednesday, which is simply because there are only a few good or popular Czechoslovak films from this decade. The reason for this is the ideological cultural policy and the strict censorship. Probuzení is one of the few exceptions, even if, from today's perspective, one has to overlook some of the platitudes and woodcut-like depictions, which were probably not unusual for the cinema of the time.

Here, too, the ideological focus is unfortunately superficial: The young people who like to dance rock'n'roll and don't want to submit to their parents' old-fashioned guidelines are all portrayed as hooligans without any morals to begin with. Then there is the poor fallen girl with the difficult family history and the good boy with family problems who allows himself to be drawn into the gang out of love. This façade probably also convinced the censors of the time.

However, if you take a closer look, there are a few cracks in it, especially from today's perspective. Young people making music with their own guitar and dancing to it would be viewed rather positively today. Their criminal energy seems artificial, as if young people with American music simply have to be thieves and robbers per se. Such a portrayal is likely to have only partially convinced the audience. Tonek's conflicts with his father and stepmother symbolize not only the generational conflict of the time, but also the conflict between young people and the authorities in a time of strict Stalinism. Many young people will have recognized themselves in this.

The film has a frame story in which director Jiří Krejčík had to embed the actual story against his will. However, this also seems like a foreign body and was probably easily seen through by the audience. Socialist optimism is spread, which doesn't fit the character of the film at all.

(This is an automatic translation by DeepL Translator.)

Czechoslovakia, 1959, 97 min

Written by: Jiří Krejčík

Cast: Jana Brejchová, Jan Šmíd, Petr Kostka, Jiří Kodet, Vladimír Menšík, Jiří Štíbr, Ladislav Pešek, Eva Šenková, Vlasta Chramostová, Marie Brožová

(This is an automatic translation by Google Translator.)