Bolek Polívka, in his first of multiple collaborations with director Vera Chytilová, portrays Honza, a college drop-out who becomes a train conductor only to be waylaid by the attentions of three separate women leading to an outrageous finale.

Ostensibly a ribald sex farce, Kalamita is in fact a sneak satirical attack on bureaucracy, disguising its salient points via the timeless medium of the coming-of-age narrative. Honza’s journey to self-discovery is framed as a reaction to the former Czechoslovakia’s “normalisation” era. This resulted in a difficult production that was subject to much oversight from the authorities.