There Once Was...

Paľo Bielik / Slovakia / 1942 / Czech Premiere / 7 min.

synopsis

Spiš Castle, “fairy-tale-like” brought to life in the dream of a child, an indoctrinated Hlinka Guard wolf.

Castles and chateaus have always been popular tourist attractions in Slovakia. Orava and Spiš castles, and ruins in the Považie region still attract visitors to romantic Slovakia. Paľo Bielik stages his cultural film about Spiš Castle as a fairy tale, read by an old mother to a boy over a wooden construction set. In the child’s dream, already heavily indoctrinated by the activities of the Hlinka wolves, the boys fight with wooden swords for control of the castle. The fight ends in a truce, and the film’s reference to the dream framework of childhood ‘historiography’.

biography

Paľo Bielik (1910–1983)
The most successful embodiment of Janosik to this day, also a founding figure of Slovak film directing activities – the author of Wolves’ Lairs and Captain Dabac decided to pursue a career as a director in 1942, after a few years of acting at the National Theatre. In Nástup, he made approximately a dozen documentaries, some of which already bear his dashing “boyish” writing style.