ObČanskÝ PrŮkaz

The four friends Petr, Aleš, Popelka and Míťa come of age in Czechoslovakia of the seventies. As with all youths at the age of fifteen, they are required to attend a ceremony at which they are to be issued with identity cards. Having turned up in jeans and, even more remarkably, without the ubiquitous pioneer neckties, the four boys immediately attract the attention of the zealous policemen charged with conducting the ceremony. Indeed a sign of things to come, as the boys’ unconventional hairstyles, love for western rock bands such as Pink Floyd and Sweet, and general unwillingness to conform to the all-encompassing melancholy and double standards of their parents' generation ensure that they remain the object of police attention. When the four come of age and the prospect of military service is in store, they refuse to simply surrender to the draft, instead doing everything in their power to obtain a “blue book”: an exemption from military service.

In contrast to fellow Czech films set in the seventies, in which the era generally serves as nothing more than a backdrop to insipid retro-comedies, the perspective of this film’s director is by no means misty-eyed. In this by all means amusing film he reminds the viewer on more than one occasion of the general sense of fear and helpless sense of anger that prevailed at the time due to the ubiquitous arbitrary exercise of state power. On the other hand the soundtrack and colourfully clothed flower-bearing children convey a sense for the positive energy of the time. A Czech take on Milos Forman’s HAIR (1979).