Vertigo is a psychological drama film directed and co-written by Karel Kachyna in 1962 in Czechoslovakia. The film stars Eva Solcova and Petr Skala.
Seventeen-year-old Bozka lives with her father Martin in a small hotel in the Ore Mountains. Some men who are looking for tin in the surrounding localities are accommodated here. Bozka adores driver Gaba, a young man who devotes his free time to adventures with married mistresses, and who overlooks a naive girl with contempt. Later, however, he notices Bozka's deep and sincere affection. But an emotionally depraved young man and a girl in love can't find their way to each other so easily ...
The lyrical film about the girl's first emotional fascination is the second film of a free trilogy created by Karel Kachyna in collaboration with screenwriter Jan Prochazka. The trilogy starts with the film Trouble/Trapeni from 1961 and ends with The High Wall/Vysoka Zed from 1964. The director cast in the main role a student Eva Solcova and entrusted the other roles to lesser-known actors from regional theaters.
Karel Kachyna not only saw people as they really were, but he also managed to masterfully convey his view to the audience. The actors under his direction do not play, but become the ones they are supposed to represent. For a movie from a working party environment and from the early sixties, I would expect some more reverberations of building enthusiasm, but here it is above all a sensitively presented romance novel between an experienced man and a teenage girl. When I add the magic with the camera to the mentioned advantages, I can't give this movie anything else than 5/5.