THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Eda and Tonda are best friends and pupils in the same class (the worst one) in a small school on the fringes of Prague in the immediate post-WWII period. When their long-suffering teacher is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, she is replaced by Igor Hnízdo, who establishes a stricter regime. He wears a soldier’s uniform complete with a pistol, tells the occasional war story for light relief, and keeps his pupils firmly under control. The class loves him, but doubts soon arise in regard to his heroic feats, and his weakness for young ladies begins to create problems. Eda, like his classmates, initially pleads in the teacher’s favour, but realizes soon enough that his true hero is his reliable and bourgeois father.