Rudá záře nad Kladnem

First question after returning from the war: "Comrades, what about socialization?" Historical cooperation: Institute of the History of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Wide smiles! Even wider shoulders! The oppressed proletariat is finally on the rise! Politically aware five-year-old girls! Politically and historically it’s relatively harmless, but the ideological germ of a forty-year crime cannot be repelled. (03.04.2010)

This film is about how not to handle the closely watched adaptation of the book of the same name by Antonín Zápotocký, who was such a sly fox that he projected himself into the character of the main protagonist in order to honor in the best possible way the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party (and he was not even president yet in 1951). At that time (1921) he was in Pankrác, so he was only an honorary founder, but he still was one. In terms of the film, we find that there is no other project as exemplary as this. Strangely enough, even when we compare New Fighters Shall Arise to The Red Glow over Kladno, it resembles a film and not a poster. It was thus prepared scientifically, with a lot of rewriting, and a lot of building of new exteriors on the set because the Kladno of the time was not suitable for filming. Apparently, Zápotocký's hands were tied in the office in the meantime, and even his personal supervision was unable to have some of the events from the book in the film. So what are we left with? The feminizing Chramostová and Fabiánová and, of course, Míla Besserů and his Václavíček, who brightens the day for the whole week ahead by how sincere and stupid he is. "Is it true, Dad, that Lenin is a terribly big man?" - "Of course he is big." - "Dad, how big is he? Is he bigger than you? Would he fit through the door?" P. S. Anyone who has noticed that the logic of some events seems to be tailored to a longer period than just 1918-1921 is right. The screenwriters evidently just moved everything that wasn't crossed out in the book forward, regardless of the consequences. (25.10.2009)

Objectivity was clearly disregarded and trampled upon in 1955 by the impartiality of that time's ideologies, historians, and, last but not least, screenwriters and directors. Ideology truly emanates from every scene like the heat from a well-heated furnace of the Kladno steelworks, yet the film describes real events that actually took place, only the behavior or attitudes of the characters, the overall tone of the film, and its message are marked by the socialist realism of the 1950s and its ideology. However, it is precisely this ideology, and not the film, that is being evaluated by the majority of those who mechanically assess it as trash! By the way, I believe that a large part of the people who called it trash haven't even seen the film. (05.04.2012)