‘Waves’ Review: Jiří Mádl Brings Compelling Life To Czech Oscar Entry

Stephanie Bunbury
·4-min read

As the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches, there could be no better time to revisit the tumultuous events of 1968 in what was then Czechoslovakia. In August of that year, Russian tanks rolled into Prague – along with the armies of five countries within the Soviet bloc – to crush Czechoslovakia’s new, homegrown version of communism, dubbed by foreign media “socialism with a human face.”

Student demonstrators were murdered, the country’s new leaders deposed. Moscow’s message was clear: There would be no deviation. Until 1989, the country’s neck would stay under the Russian boot.

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For those few months of 1968, however, the Prague spring air was filled with hope. Director-writer Jiří Mádl brings this time to compelling life in Waves, the Czech Oscar entry that follows the fervently committed team at Czechoslovak Radio. This hardscrabble bunch of journalists and technicians is right at the coalface of the struggle against censorship. Radio is the revolution’s message stick. “We stand with you!” the newscasters tell their audiences – from students protesting in the streets to ordinary people gathered in church, alternately praying and listening to the latest from the priest’s portable transistor – as they fight their own bosses for the right to tell the truth. “We stand with you! Stand with us!”

The hero of the hour is Alexander Dubcek, the country’s new president who, as he rose through the ranks of the Communist Party, had fought for political liberalization. Just as important, however, is the eruption of youthful rebellion happening not only in Czechoslovakia but across the world. Without overloading his brush, Mádl paints a picture of a younger generation for whom political freedom is inextricably entwined with sex, music and fun.

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As the story begins, Tomáš Havlik (Vojtěch Vodochodský) isn’t one of them. Tomáš is quiet, responsible and believes himself to be apolitical, an electronics technician who has been his younger brother Pavel’s (Ondřej Stupka) guardian since their parents died. That guardianship is alarmingly provisional; their apartment is often spot-checked by sour social workers, keen to find sufficient fault with Tomáš’ parenting to tidy Pavel away into an orphanage. Pavel continues to be the authorities’ bargaining chip when Tomáš gets a job at Czechoslovak Radio.

As the station’s technician, he becomes pivotal to the journalists’ struggle to report the country’s crisis as it happens. Meanwhile, Pavel goes to hear rousing talks by Milan Weiner (Stanislav Majer), Czechoslovak Radio’s icon of liberalism; by night, he sticks up posters with his older friends from university. Imagine what those murderers and rapists do to young men in prison, murmurs one of the Soviet censors to Tomáš. Time to take a broader view of the situation, don’t you think?

Vodochodsky brilliantly conveys the sense of man in a permanent state of tension, his anxiety wired into movements as small as the flicker of an eyelash. That tension is echoed in a Simon Goff’s soundtrack of insistent, tuneless rhythms knocking insistently behind the footage of troop invasions, the feverish clatter of the newsroom and the rush between hideouts where they transmit news when the station is shut down. The crew never talks about it, but they are prepared to die for what they do; meanwhile, they tease and romance each other – even Tomáš has a tentative affair with Vera (Tána Pauhofová)), a multilingual reporter with seeming nerves of steel – and party like there’s no tomorrow.

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Mádl catches them in passing, scruffy and vigorous; by contrast, the Brutalist architecture around them – the towering geometry of stairwells, the endless gray of hospital corridors, the threadbare apartment where the brothers live – is grim as death. Mádl never lets the narrative pace falter, even in the domestic sphere; a trip to buy onions is as lively, in its own cheerful way, as the urgent business of the newsroom.

Stylistically, Mádl’s work harkens back to the handsome art cinema that used to come out of Eastern Europe before the Wall came down; at the same time, he is not afraid to roughen up proceedings with a camera that swings between faces during an argument or to break the flow with a jolting splash of slow motion. Most of all, he never lets us forget that everything we see here — absolutely everything in life – is at stake.

History informs us what happened next. Alexander Dubcek led a delegation to Moscow to negotiate a withdrawal that was rejected. When he returned to Prague, they were back to business as usual, locked behind the Iron Curtain. But the flame had been lit. Twenty years later, there would be another wave of discontent and revolt; the time finally would be ripe. Comrade Dubcek, with his cheerful grin and big ideas, would be back. But that, as they say, is another story.

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Title: Waves
International Sales: Urban Films
Director-screenwriter: Jiří Mádl
Cast: Vojtěch Vodochodský, Ondřej Stupka, Stanslav Majer
Running time: 2 hr 11min

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