On the Contrary, He Is Great!

It is 1951, and Advocate Černý with his wife and thirteen-year old daughter Svatka move from Prague to his villa near Křivoklát castle. The pretty girl attracts her schoolmate Honza, the son of the communist chairman of the local Municipal National Committee, and they become friends. Honza's best friend Karel Šíma is the son of a farmer who refuses to enter the Standard Farming Cooperative. The fathers' different political views hamper the relationships between the boys and their disputes sometimes even grow into fights. Svatka returns Honza's affection and even kisses him. The members of the Czechoslovak Socialist Youth Movement invite the pupils of the local school to the Young Pioneers organization and most of the children become members. Svatka, too, takes the vow but she carefully conceals it from her snobbish mother and conservative father. She and the other Pioneers travel around the district and sing committed socialist songs. At home, she pleads choir rehearsals. When the Communists try to establish the Standard Farming Cooperative in the village, the farmers throw the agitprops into a pond. But the wet activists take it with detachment. Lawyer Černý receives some information from Prague that he is in danger of arrest for his reported illicit activities. He thus does not hesitate to take the family and illegally leave the Czechoslovak Republic. Svatka only manages to hide a farewell letter for Honza in a shelter where she used to keep her Pioneer scarf. Honza also loses Karel. His father was proclaimed a kulak, the farm is nationalized and the family is moved out. The villa left by the Černýs' now serves as a harvest lodging.