The higher principle
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The higher principle |
| Original title | Vyšší princip |
| Country of production | Czechoslovakia |
| original language | Czech |
| Publishing year | 1960 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jiří Krejčík |
| script |
Jan Drda Jiří Krejčík |
| music | Zdeněk Liška |
| camera | Jaroslav Tuzar |
| cut | Ruzena Hejsková |
| occupation | |
| |
The higher principle is a Czechoslovak fiction film from 1960. The plot depicts the terror of the German occupation regime in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi era . The anti-fascist film was shot in the Barrandov film studios. In the Federal Republic of Germany it was subject to film censorship and was not allowed to be shown until 1965 because of “anti-Germanism”.
action
Spring 1942: In the small Czech provincial town of Kostelec, fear is latent everywhere, in the conference hall of the grammar school as well as in the living room of the lawyer, in the office of the tax inspector as well as in the workshop of the coffin maker and on the streets of the city. There a tinny loudspeaker voice announces punishment and death, demands atonement for the assassination attempt on the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia , SS-Obergruppenführer and Police General Reinhard Heydrich . The state of emergency prevails. The people helplessly watch as fathers, brothers and sons are dragged away as prey by the firing squad. The Gestapo arrests three primary school students who got caught up in the machinery of the justice system for revenge through a rash boy prank .
“The higher principle” - this is what the primates call the Latin teacher Malek, because he always and everywhere speaks Seneca's word about the higher principle of morality. But the gentle, almost loving mockery that is expressed in this nickname is not justified: The unworldly pedagogue is the only person in the city who - aware of his helplessness and the danger to his own life - rebels against the injustice that happens to his students and his country. His attempt at mediation comes too late - the students end up victims of denunciation and terror.
Reviews
The Evangelical movie watchers judged by the German premiere on 13 May 1968 at the program of the First German Television (ARD): a number of good performers and evocative cinematography succeed "Using Krejcik the exact drawing of the time and its atmosphere of terror and fear ; That is why this film is worth seeing for all viewers from the age of 16, especially as an example of the awareness of National Socialist crimes among the people of our neighboring country. ”The lexicon of the international film is also full of praise:“ The film […] is haunted, accurate occupied, atmospherically densely photographed. "
Web links
- The higher principle in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Evangelischer Filmbeobachter , Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 246/1968, pp. 245–246
- ↑ Lexikon des Internationale Films, rororo-Taschenbuch No. 6322 (1988), p. 1645