Jan Palach

Jan Palach has a dense theme, but I didn't find it as strong and striking in its execution. The most impressive scenes in the film for me personally were the ones with the arrival of the Soviet troops, while the sequences concerning the life and mindset of the main character seemed rather mediocre – the only exception were some scenes with Zuzana Bydžovská. Since I knew where it was going to go, I was expecting maybe a bit more from the ending. Of course, it makes you shudder, but my expectations were somewhat different. (05/04/2020)

If Jan Palach for me, as a Czech, weren’t a subject so close to my heart, I would have given this film three stars. I believe that Mr. Sedláček was so precise that as far as the plot of the film is concerned, everything is based on facts that he’d gathered from all available sources, including the Palach family. However, at times I got lost in certain moments that did not make much sense to me in the context of the whole movie. Why did he drown the puppy in that ditch? Why was the mistress there? These are the moments that don’t add much to the story and Palach’s character, because they don’t get explained and it’s rather annoying. However, the director portrayed the environment, time, and atmosphere very faithfully here. The final scene, which the viewer is waiting the whole movie for, then came across as relatively brief and quickly done and over with, but I guess there’s nothing more to add in this case… Jan Palach is undoubtedly an interesting movie. There are many hidden thoughts and the movie depicts a time I would never want to experience. I’m aware that the communists have always been swine, but when I see on television like this, it makes me sick. I do not understand who, after all that, entitles today’s communists to take part in the current political scene in our country… (15/01/2019)

I liked a number of Czech Century episodes more than Jan Palach. And yet it's a good film, but it didn't surprise me at all, and never once affected me as strongly as Burning Bush. First of all, I would expect it to be a bolder spectacle - that the creators won't be afraid to speculate a little and come up with a new Palach motif (or at least indicate it). Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I also didn't like all the cheap-looking "clues" like the lighter, the burning leaflets or the burning Hardy, and I'm not completely satisfied with the love triangle, which didn't need to be there at all, or at least should have had a proper ending. (17/11/2018)

I didn't like that movie purely subjectively too much, or rather, it didn't manage to captivate me throughout, draw me into the story, the familiar story was portrayed boringly, it didn't have the right spark. I intentionally write subjectively, because I was annoyed by things that may not annoy other viewers at all - the main actor, in my opinion, overrated Zuzana Bydžovská, she is a good actress, but to be so praised and nominated for every bark for any award, it offends me. So why am I giving it four stars? For courage, because a Czech director finally found who wasn't afraid and went into this difficult topic and conceived it as he did, someone may like it, someone not, but he tried and that's the main thing! (17/03/2019)

Sedláček tries to fill in what was seemingly missing in Burning Bush. However, the random images from Jan Palach's life fail to offer even a hypothesis, let alone a concrete answer to the basic question of why it happened to him. Personally, I would rather like to see films about other torchbearers, for example, Ryszard Siwiec. (09/05/2022)