Karel Steklý

Kaspar Len returns home after three years in the army. He vainly searches for the mason Kryštof’s family where he had lived before he left. All he finds out is that Kryštof’s daughter Márynka, who was in his thoughts all those years, is now working in the local brothel. He goes to visit her and Márynka tells him of the misfortunes which befell her family. Her father lost his job and hunger forced him to steal some food from the merchant Konopík. Konopík caught him red-handed and threatened him with the police. He finally raped Márynka. Kryštof went mad and drowned himself in despair. Márynka grew up in a reformatory and then found herself in the brothel where she had to work to pay off her debts. Len decides to avenge Kryštof’s family…Read More »

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This winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1947 is a social drama directed by Karel Steklý, whose style has much in common with Italian Neorealism. The main themes of Steklý’s post-war film output were social inequality, oppression, and the exploitation of the proletariat. The film’s story, which was inspired by two chapters of Marie Majerová’s novel of the same name, follows this very thematic line. Siréna depicts industrial Kladno at the end of the 19th century when a miners’ strike over low wages was uncompromisingly suppressed by the gendarmerie. The film’s impressiveness is partly rooted in the convincing depiction of the mining milieu as well as in the sombre music of E. F. Burian. The film focuses on the Hudec family, whose young daughter Emča (Pavla Suchá) serves as a symbol for the suffering of the working class in the heroic struggle against capitalism.Read More »