‘Waves’ (Vlny) movie review: The end of Prague Spring through the lens of Czechoslovak Radio

Note: in Prague, Waves is currently playing with English subtitles at Kino Světozor, Edison Filmhub and other local cinemas.

Dramatic events in Prague leading up to the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia are recounted through the eyes of journalists working at Czechoslovak Radio in Waves (Vlny), which premiered earlier this summer at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and opens wide in cinemas across the Czech Republic this weekend.

This handsomely-mounted story from writer-director Jiří Mádl has a tendency to overplay the drama surrounding its fictional central protagonist, but the real-life underpinnings shine through, especially during a thrilling climax as Soviet tanks roll through Prague. Viewers well-versed in Czech history and those completely unfamiliar with the events Waves recounts will both find a lot to like here.

Waves stars Vojtěch Vodochodský as Tomáš Havlík, a young technician struggling to make ends meet while taking care of his teenage brother Pavel (Ondřej Stupka) following the death of their parents some years before. Tomáš has too much on his plate to care about the politics in Prague, 1967, but worries about Pavel, who is involved in underground student protests.

Efforts to protect his brother inadvertently lead to Tomáš being offered a job at the International Life desk of Czechoslovak Radio under a team led by editor Milan Weiner (Stanislav Majer). The progressive-minded team just happens to be in the crosshairs of the Czechoslovak secret police (StB), but times seem to be changing under Alexander Dubček’s banner of “socialism with a human face,” and Central Communications Administration director Karel Hoffman (Tomáš Maštalír) advises him to take the job.

Tomáš and his brother are fictional characters, and while they represent the countless Czechoslovak citizens oppressed under the Soviet communism, Mádl’s screenplay has a tendency to artificially inflate the tension. The stage is set for an internal struggle as Tomáš is pressured to turn informant, but because the character is presented in such altruistic light from the very beginning, there’s little doubt how this will play out.

The subversive terror of StB surveillance seen in films like Karel Kachyňa’s The Ear is a more direct and far less effective threat here, with secret police agents behaving like mafia goons as they smash equipment at the radio offices and offer Tomáš blunt ultimatums in exchange for information.

Waves makes far more of an impact, meanwhile, as it turns its attention to the desk of International Life and follows real-life journalists working under Weiner, including characters played by Táňa Pauhofová, Vojtěch Kotek, Martin Hofmann, Tomáš Maštalír, Petr Lněnička, and Jacob Erftemeijer. As they uncover Soviet-manufactured lies in Bratislava and Moscow, and break an embezzlement story that leads to the resignation of Czechoslovak President Antonín Novotný, the film is operating at peak efficiency.

This comes to a thrilling conclusion over the final 45 minutes of Waves as Soviet tanks roll into Prague and the office of Czechoslovak Radio is one of their primary targets. With the invasion presented as a mission of humanitarian aid to expel fascism by Moscow (an unfortunately familiar tactic in 2024), the radio is one of the lone sources of real information for the Czechoslovak public. The story of how they keep broadcasting despite the invasion is expertly conveyed and generally makes up for the artificial nature of some of the earlier scenes.

Waves is the third film directed by Mádl, better known to local audiences as a (typically comic) actor, and its easily his most accomplished to date. It also continues a string of sturdy period pieces covering key political events in 20th century Czechoslovak history that includes Masaryk and last year’s Brothers. Production and costume design are expectedly first-rate.

Being set at a radio newsroom, Waves also benefits from a terrific soundtrack featuring 1960s pop music from both Czech and international artists; The Ronettes’ Be My Baby (cribbed, perhaps, from Martin Scorsese‘s Mean Streets) underscores a memorable introduction to the International Life desk, offered as the kind of Western sound that Czechoslovak Radio is unable to play.