In the Shadow

1953, Czechoslovakia. Captain Hakl is investigating a jeweller's robbery. The trail leads to a known burglar and the case looks like closing. Then his superiors take it off him and turn it in another direction: the robbery is now presented as a Jewish organisation's plan to smuggle gold. A specialist is brought in from Germany. Hakl sees that this account has been invented and carries on with the investigation on his own. The film sits on the real background of those years: the period of show trials in Czechoslovakia that began inside the party and were built openly on antisemitism. David Ondříček tells it through a police story; while Hakl is trying to solve a crime he realises the state is manufacturing one. Ivan Trojan plays Hakl and Sebastian Koch the German specialist. A hundred and six minutes. The look is cold and grey; the film promises heroism nowhere.