The Incredibly Sad Princess

Director Bořivoj Zeman became one of the leading Czech filmmakers in the 1950s with his timeless classics The Proud Princess and Once Upon a Time, There Was a King. In 1968 he followed them up with the equally successful musical fairy tale The Incredibly Sad Princess. Zeman cast two stars of the contemporary pop music – Helena Vondráčková and Václav Neckář – in the main roles of the defiant young heroes who do not intend to submit to the plans of their royal fathers. The modern nature of the film, which is more ironic than romantic and features two generations clashing instead of good and evil, also contributed to the increased interest of the audience. The music by the then twenty-year-old multi-instrumentalist Jan Hammer, the unpolished vocabulary of the characters and the numerous allusions to the political and social atmosphere of the time also add to the swing of the narrative, complicating the film's fate after invasion of Russian army in August 1968.