30 Cases of Major Zeman

Czech audiences love their informants. Those cheerful informants that come from the people, with a kind face and the proper attitude and explanation of all the major historical events in the difficult times of 1948. Czech audiences cannot live without their informants. Because the world of informants is one big fairy tale – there is clear good and there is clear evil. Evil are all those who are not informants of the people. Repulsive intellectuals. True peasants. Rich peasants. Artists. Then there are even less perfect individuals, not evil per se, but simply not from the Public Security. Together, they form a world ruled by our informants from the people. Jiří Sequens filmed the embodied normalization, both in terms of shape and content. Beneath the thin crust of would-be detective stories (are they detective stories at all, dear experts?) lies well-formulated propaganda, served with boorish charm and uncommon pander. Was it good in terms of craft? Don't let anyone laugh at you. Terrible! Sparse! Artificial! Perhaps the musical accompaniment is worth giving credit to... However, Czech audiences love their informants and do not care that Thirty Cases of Major Zeman is first-class propaganda shit, and when we take a closer look at it, the film seems to have a perverse systematic tendency to overturn reality. Enjoy yourselves, fans of comrade Major Zeman of the people… Did you actually notice what the famous Well is all about? Murder? But! Try again... How about the wrong attitude of a part of the socialist nation in regards to 1968? It's burning!!!!! (07.07.2004)

A rather flustered Father Brun and others... I am a little Commie boy, a Little Czech Honza Brabeček. Your “truth" will die with you, my truth, dictated by the Party, will never be forgotten! I present my truth thirty times and entertain you that many times too. We get to see Cuba, and cool off in a Well as well. You get to see the Communist acting elite skillfully camouflaging historical events. Emigres rob, murder and lie and are rightly hanged by the neck for it. Now I’m a big Communist and via this series I am telling you the Commie TRUTH. (21.02.2008)

Jiří Sequens claimed in the 90s that the original concept of the series was completely different, much more civil, and fulfilling the characteristics of the crime genre. However, the State Security apparatus was involved in the preparation and production of the series to such an extent that it completely distorted the intentions of the production team. Whatever the case may be, the result was a project that has a much more political and propagandistic dimension than a detective, or rather a criminalistic dimension. Practically all the episodes, without exception, distort real historical processes to correspond to the defense of the then-state establishment and ruling ideology. Some do it more skillfully, some less, but they are all deceitful. Over time, only the music by Zdeněk Liška and the participation of a large number of great actors can be appreciated, even though often with gritted teeth. From ordinary projects affected by the times, one could usually withdraw, but it was impossible to reject a project as popular as this one. Overall impression: 20%. (10.08.2016)

Politically, of course, it's an utterly condescending and all-pervading, warped and distorted "mirror of the times" that will easily make you sick. But filmmaking-wise, the series is not flawed in the slightest. In short, Sequens' direction, coupled with Liška's music and good actors, is a combination that makes an experience out of even something that’s such an agitprop. (22.06.2009)