A story about passionate love, basketball and life in the shadow of politics. The film begins in 1938. The main storyline of the film is about a young lawyer and athlete Franta (Filip Brezina). He falls in love with a dancer Michelle (Patricia Volny), who he meets in a post-war European Basketball Championships in Geneva. Michelle is haunted by her fate. She has been persecuted and left her homeland to escape Stalin and Hitler. Their story, in addition to politics, is influenced by two opposing individuals, coach Valenta (Stanislav Majer) and functionary Hrabal (Ondrej Maly), and culminates in 1951, when Europe has been divided by the iron curtain.
The film shows an ideal past of our basketball players, corrupted by communism. What I can point out the most is the music, which was particularly believable and convinced me about the good quality of the film, as well as beautiful scenes during the games. Costumes must have been hard to get, as there was a lot of extras. The cast is very well chosen. The actors are not well known, so I didn’t mix their roles with another characters they played in other movies. The story is written by life itself, so there can’t be anything added or removed. It is a great illustration of the power of communism after the World War II., the war that has spoiled the future of Czech basketball champions.
Actually, I can’t even believe that after the crap that Czech filmmakers has been making up, someone finally wakes up and creates something dignified. The problem arises in the moment when cinemas open, and people expect to see a crazy comedy. Unfortunately, drama doesn’t make that much money as comedies, so filmmakers are discouraged from making quality films. I would search for a long time a Czech movie as well filmed as the Golden Betrayal!