Commentary
In this clip from the fictional film National Identity Card, we see a family talking after having attended parent-teacher conferences. This situation could be an opportunity for the family as a unit to clarify its attitude towards the regime. What is apparent, however, is mainly the contradiction between the private and the public space. The father tries to explain to his sons his strategy and his motivation behind the fact that he behaves differently at home than in public and does not air his personal attitudes and opinions in public. They also discuss certain situations at school, where the boys did not conform and thus broke the unwritten rules. The older boy does not approve of his father’s strategy; he considers it hypocritical and sees in it only one goal: a family vacation to Yugoslavia (only approved families were given permission to travel). The boy also refers to the source of this division between public and private space – the occupation in 1968 (“the language of the occupiers”), after which policy was directed at suppressing any public discourse that did non conform with the official language. The father in the clip is thus a good example of the fact that control in society was not based only on decrees and monitoring, but on self-censorship on the part of the citizens themselves. The separation of private and public life guaranteed the stability of the regime. The family’s specific strategies, which are clearly shown in the film, differ from contemporary situations in everyday life. This is what makes it so interesting for audiences today.
