Jan Nemec's 1966 satire on the Czech socialist regime was suppressed for two years prior to its release in 1968. All of Nemec's films (Diamonds of the Night, Mother and Son, Pearls at the Bottom) reflect a studied discomfort with the impotence of ordinary individuals in modern society. This film is perhaps his most anguished, although its allegorical structure tends to reduce ideas rather than illuminate them. In Czech with subtitles. By Dave Kehr