PETER AND PAVLA
Cerny Petr
Milos Forman's first feature-film has as its theme the trials and tribulations of a young boy: his first love, his relations with the adult world, his parents and the people with whom he comes in contact at work. His job in a shop is to see thai customers do not "abscntniindcdly slip goods into their own shopping bags instead of into the store baskets Peter's eyes are opened to the ways of the aduli world.
Shoplifting, supermarkets, football coupons and the Twist are hardly what we expect in an East European film, and it is refreshing to find that, in the director's delightful view his fellow countrymen share our Western weaknesses so amiably If lit these are only the background to an affectionately mock log picture of working teenagers and their relations with their uncomprehending elders. Young Peter and his friends are not very bright and Peter's father is a pompous old bore, but such is Forman's lightness of touch that they all emerge as warmly human and alarmingly recognizable.
Golden Sail Award, Locarno Festival.