Labyrint srdce

Based on František Pavlíček’s original stage play, Jiří Krejčík directed this drama about a mother (Marie Vášová) who waits for her son Pavel to return home from exile following the 1955 amnesty for postwar refugees, and who, until then, stubbornly tries to maintain the status quo. The perspective of the lonely mother lends the film a somber, even oppressive atmosphere, and the crime plot evokes the film noir genre. Her actions clash intergenerationally with the more unrestrained behavior of the younger characters. One of them is Pavel’s girlfriend Jana, portrayed with sensitivity and melancholy by Jana Brejchová, who, despite Pavel’s mother’s insistence, begins a new life without him. Following the films The Morals of Mrs. Dulská (1958), Awakening (1959), and The Higher Principle (1960), this marks Jana Brejchová’s fourth collaboration with director Jiří Krejčík.