In the film, Sommerová offers a portrait of the musician, politician and civic activist from key moments in his childhood through his youth and adulthood to his mature years.
The result is a portrait of an artist and a politician, who instead of the “uncompromising fury” of an old rocker offers the optimism of life accompanied by an understanding humility towards successes and a self-deprecating reflection of one’s mistakes and mistakes.
“I was a keen student, a complete fanatic. When I wasn’t practicing eight hours a day, I was nervous that nothing would come of me,” Kocáb recalls of his years at the conservatory, when he studied the organ so intensely that he even broke into Prague’s Rudolfinum at night to practice – otherwise there were not enough opportunities to satisfy his desire to study.
He then gave a graduation concert in the Rudolfinum itself, and that was the end of his organist career.
During his studies, he first founded the Prague Selection group, which was definitely not suitable for the regime of the time, but was tolerated for many years, then banned, and after its restoration still exists today.
Under the influence of Stivín
Jiří Stivín had a great influence on his musical direction. “He opened the chakras of improvisation and gave us a freedom we had no idea about at the conservatory,” he and Ondřej Soukup recall during a visit to the great jazz musician, multi-instrumentalist and composer.
In 1982 the Prague selection was banned and this ban lasted for five years. However, Michael Kocáb was not idle, he composed film music for films such as Humor Seller, Straka v hristi, Zastihla me noc, Vlčí bouda or Král zlodějů, for which he was awarded the Czech Lion.
His most significant work in the field of stage music is the 1986 ballet Odysseus for Laterna magika. It was an extraordinary event created by Evald Schorm, Michal Horáček, Jindřich Smetana and cameraman Jaroslav Kučera on the set of the famous production designer Josef Svoboda.
A family of great personalities
A significant amount of space in the film is devoted to Kocáb’s family, especially his four children Natália, Michael the Younger, Jessica and David. Jessica says in the film that they are a family of great personalities and also very funny. Kocáb’s love relationship with his mother, who according to him would rather completely dominate everyone, is also evident from the shots and dialogues of the family members.
“The only advantage, the only advantage, of living alone like a fence and not having a wife is that you have freedom. With a woman came various beauties of life, but also limitations: where are you, when will you come and so on. And I just have that limitation from you,” she says with a smile to her mother as she explains to him that she needs to know exactly where her son is and when he will come, why “and if anything happens.”
Missing from Kocáb’s otherwise open view of privacy is his five-year partnership with Lejla Abbasová, the mother of his youngest son David. This is because, in her own words, the director wanted to avoid the tabloids that once accompanied the relationship between the politician and the spokeswoman. Otherwise, the film avoids anything that interested Sommer.
“The idea of getting Olga Sommerová to touch on certain subjects would make me question my integrity. I answered all the questions and it was up to her what to put in the film,” says Kocáb.
Rocker must be against the regime
Sommerová admits that she was inspired by the subject of her film: “Because Michal is creative, he brought many ideas during the shooting. In the editing room, it was already my job to incorporate the filmed material into a form that represented my vision of Michal’s personality , his civil and political commitment, a musician whose scope ranges from serious to rock music. I do not deny that we have sometimes sought compromises between my opinion and yours”.
With Michal Horáček (and Petr Hapka), Kocáb took part in the famous V penzion svět record, and with Horáček he also founded the Most initiative in the spring of 1989, which was supposed to mediate communication between the ruling and dissident structures.
His political activity continued for several years after November 17: he is one of the founders of the Civic Forum, as a co-opted member of the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia, appointed Václav Havel as president, and directed the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia.
In 2009 he became Minister for Human Rights and National Minorities and later Government Commissioner for Human Rights.
This most serious layer of the documentary reveals the seemingly irreconcilable personal positions of a rock musician and artist who is still creating and living intensely, and a politician who uncompromisingly promotes freedom, human rights and democracy. Paradoxically, this makes him part of the establishment, against which every “honest rocker” has to stand out.
However, Kocáb himself believes he’s still that rocker. “Retiring from high politics on a promise that I would leave politics with the last Soviet soldier leaving our territory, I returned to my rocker nature in 1992.”
Advisor to Václav Havel
Although he was Václav Havel’s external adviser for ten years, he created at the same time, and in 2009-2010 he was minister of human rights for one year, but soon after he returned to music.
“In politics, I experienced a similar adrenaline rush as in our rock performances, and I have never felt such relief in office,” says Kocáb.
Olga Sommerová collaborated on the film with her daughter Olga Malířová Špátová, who, in addition to her own directing work, worked as a cameraman on twenty of her mother’s films, including the documentaries Věra 68 about gymnast Věra Čáslavská, Magický hlas rebelky about singer Marta Kubišová, Červená about the opera singer Sona Červená, and It’s easy to argue with life about the stage actor Jiří Suché.
