The original novel by Josef Škvorecký is based on a contemporary piece of news about a purported priest who served in Czech mountains for almost a year without being uncovered. Director Evald Shorm made it into a film, a masterpiece of the Czech New Wave, starring Vlastimil Brodský and Jan Libíček. Nonetheless, the story of the village where the old traditions have been obliterated is not necessarily linked to the 1950s, in which the novel is set, or the late 1960s, when Evald Schorm made his film. The metaphor branching out into several directions is actually a cynical parable set at an indefinite time and place, yet conveying a very definite message. It touches on topics that remain highly relevant to date: the conflicts between urban and rural areas, the aggressive atomization of social bubbles, and the difference between ‘to comprehend and to understand’, and ‘to believe and to have faith’.
