The Alienation of Youth in East European Films - (By Michael Jon Stoil - 1974) - Movies - http://maxpages.com/czechcinema/4_The_Alienation_of

It is the official policy of the governments of Eastern Europe to deny that the youth of their countries are alienated or apathetic or subject to any of the confusion which is common among the youth of capitalist countries. Despite the authorized picture of Eastern European youth as dedicated builders of a socialist future, screenplay authors and film directors of the region have attempted to discuss the very real 'youth problem'. At first limited to propagandistic statements against local 'hooliganism', the cinema of Eastern Europe became more thoughtful by the early 1960's. Although often critical of the post-war generation, film-makers have continued to progress in portraying the realistic reactions of the socialist generation to the social system into which they were born.
Cinema in Czechoslovakia has been orientated for a long time toward the examination of society through the analysis of the daily lives of ordinary people. Czech culture has a strong emphasis on humanism running counter to the 'scientific' spirit of socialism. The programs of the Czech reformers in 1968 reflected the desire to humanize their society; the Czech director's fascination with depiction of ordinary people facing unheroic situations stems from the same humanistic values. Czech directors gave rise to a school of realistic cinema, both serious as in "The Shop on the High Street" (1965) and comic as in "Fireman's Ball", rivaling the work of any other national cinema.
Among the foremost of these directors is Milos Forman, the director of "Fireman's Ball" and an early graduate of the post-war Prague Film School. Forman's first two features, "Peter and Pavla" (1963) and "A Blonde in Love" (1965), deal with individuals trying to escape the drabness of their lives through love afairs, either real or imagined. In "Peter and Pavla", Forman traces the efforts of an inept young store detective to attach himself romantically to an indifferent older girl. In the second feature, a young factory worker becomes infatuated with a pianist in a dance band and fantasizes that their one-night affair is the beginning of a serious romance. The blonde's efforts to continue the affair place her in conflict with the musician and society. In both films, Forman has succeeded in combining satire with sympathy for the plight of young people looking for romance in an unromantic society. In addition, in both films Forman touches briefly on the small irritations of socialist life, such as a young worker's difficulties in finding enough money to marry with. Later films by other Czech directors, Jan Nemec's "Martyrs of Love" (1966) for example, reflect similar themes and similar attitudes.
(Copyright - Michael Jon Stoil)

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