When the Communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948, Jan Kacer was the right man in the right place: a worker in a big industrial plant, he was also a youth leader for the Party, and so began his political rise. Now that Stalin is dead, however, things have changed, even though it's not clear how long Stalin has been dead when this movie takes place, or how things have changed. Now, however, his fellow workers don't seem to hold him in respect, and girlfriend Jana Brejchová doesn't seem as enamored of him as before.
Given that Stalin died in 1953, 1964 was a good year to start criticizing the dead dictator. You may, of course, view this as an early movie in the Czech Spring movement that would end rather abruptly four years later, when Soviet tanks rolled in. It's impossible for me to judge, sixty years later, just what pressures director/cowriter Evald Schorm faced, but given the current orthodoxy, he must have felt nervous, given that Kacer seems rather oblivious to the events, whether they are set in 1954 or ten years later.
Given that Stalin died in 1953, 1964 was a good year to start criticizing the dead dictator. You may, of course, view this as an early movie in the Czech Spring movement that would end rather abruptly four years later, when Soviet tanks rolled in. It's impossible for me to judge, sixty years later, just what pressures director/cowriter Evald Schorm faced, but given the current orthodoxy, he must have felt nervous, given that Kacer seems rather oblivious to the events, whether they are set in 1954 or ten years later.