Who Will Watch the Watchman? Dalibor, or the Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

director: Karel Vachek

original title: Kdo bude hlídat hlídače? Dalibor, aneb klíč k chaloupce strýčka Toma

year: 2002

running time: 220 min.

synopsis

The most characteristic theme of the film, whose actors are symbolically “imprisoned” in the space of Prague’s National Theatre, is that of subversive battles launched against any sort of establishment (in politics, scholarship, and culture) and the rules or “laws” that frequently work against them—rules that, of course, also offer a moral justification for battle. Vachek, in this film, is interested in figures who engage in these kinds of battles, a majority of whom have already suffered some kind of setback.

biography

Karel Vachek (1940) creates multi-layered philosophical and social essays. In 2004, he published the book The Theory of Matter. Films: Moravian Hellas, 1963, Elective Affinities, 1968, New Hyperion or Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood, 1992, What Is to Be Done? (A Journey from Prague to Český Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government, 1996, Bohemia Docta or The Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-house of the Heart A Divine Comedy, 2000, Who Will Watch the Watchman? Dalibor, or the Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, 2002, Obscurantist and His Lineage or The Pyramids’ Tearful Valleys, 2011.

more about film

director:	Karel Vachek
script:	Karel Vachek
photography:	Karel Slach
editing:	Renata Pařezová

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