Ingovány

From a genre perspective, a very well-made, highly professional film with a problematic political subtext. Factually propagandistic movie about brave border guards, facing subversion from the West. The atmosphere of the film cannot be denied even after years, as well as a number of remarkable performances and professional direction. I wonder to what extent Kachyňa believed in that story during filming. Overall impression: with significant regard to the craft aspect, 70%. One of Radovan Lukavský's most prominent roles, to which he himself reluctantly admitted. (2006.06.16)

Kachyňa is undeniable, but so is the theme. If we combine good craft and interesting performances of the young folk, who until recently shone in Kladno, or danced everywhere, what do we get? Plichta. That's even assuming we are able to appreciate the slowly germinating Vala, the bland Remunda, the always-same Jiroušková and Švorcová, who has blossomed from a tractor driver into a beauty. The desired humor is provided by Menšík and the unwanted picking-up via motorbike. (2009.02.26)

Two stages in the development of Czech culture (cinema) collide in Smugglers of Death. The stage of "art" imbued with ideology, that mythically/metaphysically black-and-white world in which there is a clear boundary of light/shadow – good/evil and a gradually nascent new wave of Czech film. Let us note how the death of the King of Šumava will mysteriously change the climate situation. It can be rightly assumed that the incriminating element in the services of imperialism not only helps to transfer the enemy of the people to the bastion of the West (a hideous hazy viable nothingness on the horizon called Bavaria), but is also responsible for inhumanly ugly weather. Killing him will lead to a hydro-meteorological miracle... Even the power poles hum differently. That's the ideology in the movie... creeping, inconspicuous, hideously suggestive. Perfectly subliminal. It also includes a drawing of the atmosphere of the border guard, a place of pure camaraderie, proper manhood, the lingering harmony of buildings / nascent socialism growing downwards... The camera also contributes to heroic tendencies, often piously capturing heroes from the ceilings and in compositions reminiscent of contemporary fine art. Nevertheless, I do not dare to declare Smugglers of Death to be the same ballast as, for example, the normalizing mess 30 Cases of Major Zeman. Unlike it, this is a very high-quality piece of filmmaking and a perfect example of mastering the basic mechanisms of manipulation and suggestion. The atmosphere simply clings, if only because it is purposefully emanated into a terrifying to almost horror gloom, from which a whole generation of detective stories benefit. Convincing work with (semi)detail, subjective camera and the editing and music are reminiscent of a real glimpse of the principles of nascent "new" cinematography, which withdrew from impersonality into the narrowly subjective sphere of the characters. It's perverted, but I think it's appropriate. I'm not going to draw any consequences from these lines. Smugglers of Death is an excellently filmed "thriller" with a bizarre ideological skeleton, which I have outlined. However, if you do not feel at least a little disgust at this deliberate manipulation, everything is not ok with you. (2004.11.28)

Smugglers of Death is a perfect example of a precisely made movie that at the same time perfectly captures what things looked like in the Šumava Mountains back then. And that’s both in the good perspective of how people lived at that time, and from the bad angle that shows us what kind of propaganda people were being fed at that time. They simply wanted to show everybody how bad and rotten the West was. An incredibly schizophrenic movie. (2017.12.02)

Yeah, it's masterfully shot and does have an impressive atmosphere and great actors, but you just can't close your eyes to the ideological morass that pervades the whole film. If I had to choose which side I would take, the side of the armed defenders of the communist cage or the side of the cross-border smugglers of people who want to live in freedom and a decent society, I would choose the latter. (2005.11.27)