The White Dove

A homing pigeon takes off from an island on the Baltic; it has to get back to Prague. On the way it loses its course. In the city a boy sees it from an apartment window: Michal is in a wheelchair and does not go out. He shoots the bird with a bow. It falls wounded onto a balcony. A painter lives in the same building; he takes the bird and tries to heal it. On the island a girl is waiting for it. František Vláčil directs. It is his first feature and counts as a formal turning point in Czech cinema. There is almost no dialogue. The narrative rests entirely on image, movement and sound; the events are not explained and the connections are left to the viewer. The image is black and white and the compositions are deliberately abstract; the sea, sand, empty walls and window frames are the real material. The subject is a wrong and its repair; the boy wants to put right what he did and can only do it by the bird recovering. Vláčil made large period films in later years, and this first one is where his visual understanding was formed. It won awards at international festivals and made his name. Who it is for: viewers who like formally strong Eastern European cinema and wordless narrative. Who it is not for: little happens, the narrative is deliberately unclear, and the pace is very slow.