Distant Journey 1949 CZE SUB ENG 1080p BluRay x264

Year: 1949

Country: Czechoslovakia

Director: Alfréd Radok

Cast: Blanka Waleská, Otomar Krejca, Viktor Ocásek, Zdenka Baldová

IMDB: Link
Language : Czech

Subtitles : English


The most striking departure from Kolár’s sober realism was Radok’s narrative style, revealing Radok’s knowledge of German expressionism and Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941). Like Welles, Radok was using theatre methods, and employing light and sound in an expressionist manner and in an original way; he was confronting the acted scenes with the material of the newsreel weeklies and propaganda films of the time. Through a juxtaposition of different perspectives, sometimes even within one shot, he contrasted the „big“ history with „small“ personal stories. Radok resorted to expressive poetics in an attempt to grasp the „inner truth“ of the Theresienstadt ghetto and to let the viewers experience the horror of the constant presence of death experienced by the imprisoned Jews. In his opinion, a realistic depiction of cruelty wouldn’t have the same effect.
In spite of the changes and departure from the screenplay, the film was approved for distribution in May 1949. In their opinion, the censorship board appreciated the fact that through one family Distant Journey was showing the suffering experienced by the entire Jewish nation during the War. However, it soon turned out that for the Communist leaders of the country, this was not a topic they would like to give much visibility to. The Holocaust was only on the table again after the cultural liberalization of the 1960s, with Zbynek Brynych directly building on Distant Journey with his Transport from Paradise (Transport z ráje, 1962) taking place solely in the Theresienstadt ghetto.
Even though 42 copies of Distant Journey were made for the cinemas, its release was only limited, and it was almost not covered by the media after the première. The film was mainly screened at the periphery of Prague and in the country, and not in the centres of major cities. The order limiting the distribution and promotion of the film was issued by the Ministry of Information after Minister Václav Kopecký met with director Otakar Vávra. Being able to find a place in every regime thanks to his liquid views and perhaps out of envy and astonishment over Radok’s artistic talent, the director claimed that Distant Journey was an artistic and ideological fiasco. He also

shared his view with Kopecký, who probably also on that account ordered the „invisibilization“ of the unique and timeless film.
Whereas at home Radok was accused of formalism and pessimism and the conditions for his artistic creation deteriorated, abroad his directorial debut drew wide attention. As early as in July 1949, Distant Journey was screened at the festival in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium. In the following year, it was released in Switzerland, Israel and the US, and later on also in France and other countries. Some publicists admired the film whereas others, in the spirit of Adorno’s famous essay Cultural Criticism and Society claiming that to write poetry after Auschwitz was barbaric, criticized the „aestheticization“ of the Holocaust and attempts to portray the unportrayable. Anyway, the media coverage was extensive and so, paradoxically, it was easier for Western viewers to find out about the film and watch it than for Czech ones. (Martin Šrajer)

[ About file ]
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Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2026 04:37:43 +0200

Size: 15,030,352,343 bytes (14334.060996 MiB)
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Production date: Thu, 18 Jun 2020 22:20:28 +0200

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Std. dev. weighted mean: 2.648741
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standard deviation: 2.757843

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[ Edition entry ]
UID: 8904107315616470000

Hidden: No

Selected by default: No

Playlist: No

Chapters:

00:00:00,000-00:08:42,917: Chapter 01 {eng}

00:08:42,917-00:17:13,125: Chapter 02 {eng}

00:17:13,125-00:26:04,875: Chapter 03 {eng}

00:26:04,875-00:34:57,333: Chapter 04 {eng}

00:34:57,333-00:43:00,875: Chapter 05 {eng}

00:43:00,875-00:49:39,792: Chapter 06 {eng}

00:49:39,792-01:00:46,125: Chapter 07 {eng}

01:00:46,125-01:08:48,208: Chapter 08 {eng}

01:08:48,208-01:16:45,083: Chapter 09 {eng}

01:16:45,083-01:26:05,708: Chapter 10 {eng}

01:26:05,708-01:34:37,833: Chapter 11 {eng}

01:34:37,833-01:48:33,993: Chapter 12 {eng}
This report was created by AVInaptic (01-11-2020) on 13-07-2026 01:04:31