Starci Na Chmelu

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It starts with 3 dudes in black, playing groovy tunes and telling us a groovy story...
You just know it's a movie, because I've never seen so many Czechs smile so much. Then again, they're doing it for the beer!
But fear not, the smiles soon fade.

What starts out as a funky happy musical becomes a nice metaphor.

Ah, 1964...

Adolf and his cronies were long gone, the tanks were still to come, Karel Gott was not yet a mummy dating 12 year olds.
Times were good.
Or were they?

The bad guy represents communism. He's a bully, overbearing and treacherous, seemingly good and benevolent. In charge of 'security.' Someone who uses anonymous letters to rat on people. And in the end, he's a bitter man, lonely and wanting to live free, but too afraid to do it.

In contrat and obviously, then: The good guy is, well... not communism: a free thinker, an idealist, a man in love. An individualist, who reads Massaryk and Seneca. A poet, a writer. Someone who does not want to share his sleeping place with the 'people.'

The love story that might be, can be, should be, becomes a metaphor for people living free from the yoke of communism. And 'expulsion, shame and content' are so many words that in those days could mean imprisonment, torture and death.

In the end, all ends well (spoiler alert, dudes!): the people say no to communism, literally turning their backs to it.
And as the bus travels through what looks like a no man's land straight out of Berlin circa, well, 1964, the music swells up and off to the West they go.

Then again, maybe I'm reading too much into this, blame the heat and the wine.
Maybe it's only about hop-pickers who want to fuck.