Smrt krásných srnců (Forbidden Dreams)

Karel Heřmánek leads this cinematographic concert playing the lead role of Leo Popper, an Electrolux sales representative who is focused on providing for his family. Because of his talent for salesmanship and his natural sense of comedy, he is quite successful. However, his family situation suffers because of his outgoing personality and his weakness for women, whom he meets while making sales calls.
His other “vice” is fishing, which he devotes his free time to. The lighthearted atmosphere of the 1930s, including success, money and women, is soon exchanged for the difficulties of being a Jew during the Nazi occupation. Because of his Jewish origins, Leo is let go from his job, while his entire family falls victim to discrimination and is finally threatened with being transported to a concentration camp. When Leo learns that his two eldest sons will be deported, he undertakes a risky journey down his beloved Berounka River to meet his friend Karel Prošek and to catch fish for his boys. The fish will help them survive the concentration camp. After an unsuccessful catch, he decides to kill a deer, even though he feels that the death of a deer is equivalent to the death of a human being.

This sample presents the climax of the film, when Leo tries to convince Prošek and his dog Holan to help him hunt the deer.



Karel Kachyna’s film was based on the autobiographical book of the same name, written by Ota Pavel in 1986. Forbidden Dreams is Kachyna’s second film based on Ota Pavel’s childhood and the fate of a Jewish family during the Second World War. The first such film as Golden Eels from 1979. Creator: Ota Pavel. Screenwriter: Karel Kachyňa, Music: Luboš Fišer. Cameraman: Vladimír Smutný. Director: Karel Kachyňa.

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