#milada

Former Milada Squat, Praha, August 2025

Squat Milada was a First Republic villa in Prague's Libeň district, occupied in 1997 by activists after being slated for demolition in the 1980s and officially removed from the cadastral register. Operating as a self-managed social center and infoshop, it hosted concerts, workshops, and served as a communal living space until its brutal eviction in 2009. The building was briefly reoccupied in 2012 for a commemorative event, and during the second eviction, it was deliberately damaged by the state forces and has remained derelict since then.

Yesterday, I tried watching five movies. I stopped after three, five, or eight minutes. The last movie got 20 minutes of my attention.

Bonnie and Clyde (a new one): Yes, awesome, start the plot by showing us the very car where they died and switch back to the past. Not tired of that one at all.

“My name is Clyde. My lucky numbers are... I keep a horseshoe under my bed.”

Who are you talking to, God? Also, maybe show me the boy!Clyde play with his horseshoe? So I could be more invested in him?

Nuh. Suddenly, he’s having a fever and hallucinations with... Bonnie?!

WHAT!

I don’t care if that’s true. This is a red signal for my mind. No. No! Next movie.

Collateral: Within first eight minutes of the movie I learned nothing about the protagonist taxi driver or why I should root for him. Next.

Ma... Mali... Madi... WOW!

Milada:

Okay. Look. Ever watched Patton? I did. I had absolutely no reasons to watch Patton but I knew the inner joke with “You magnificent bastard” and decided to watch it.

The very first scene with the general presents him in his full uniform, with several closeups to his medals, rings, rank stars, everything. Then, the general delivers a speech, which is a medley of his authentic speeches. You learn his point of view, what he values, how he talks. You witness his charisma and controversy.

How does the 2017 movie introduce you to Milada Horáková? Whose name I couldn’t even remember right now and had to google?

WITH A WHITE TEXT ON A BLACK SCREEN.

Um. Quite a falstart, but okay, let’s keep watching.

Naturally, the next thing we see is...

An archive folder with her name on it.

And then, her DAUGHTER (whom I failed to recognize despite the movie’s attempt to inform me) receives a letter written by Milada in the past.

Uuuuuuuh...

And finally, the plot does the switcharoo to the 1930s and introduces us to Milada... who’s leaving an orchestra concert because she’s having a pregnancy vomit.

>.>

In the next scene, Milada is preparing her anti-Hitler speech. She’s walking back and forth, turning, stuttering, coming up with... synonyms for the adjective “twisted”. And then, we get a layout over that moment with a newspaper claiming that she delivered a great speech.

How can a scriptwriter and a director make me uninterested in a Czech activist trialed by the communist government? Exactly the way I described above. Next.

Another forever: Oh boy.

A widow is grieving after her husband. Very slowly. In real time, in fact. She’s on a sofa. Like I tend to do when I have nothing to do. Now she’s sitting up. For thirty seconds. I get it, her life is empty without him. But the scene goes on. She stands up. She’s walking. It’s still the same scene. I get it.

Out of a sudden, we get a flashback. With no transition. No filter. No background music. The memory doesn’t differ at all with the present time. Oh, the only difference is that the husband is alive. They’re laughing, hugging, kissing, talking. And then it’s the present time, again. She’s standing. Staring. A voice message. She’s ignoring it. Still standing and staring.

And another flashback. And another present time. And I’m done. Next.

Love beats rhymes: Yo. A female freestyle rapper of African origins. Delivering lovely puns. Confident. Feminist. Yes.

But then, I saw the red flag: “Oh, I don’t care about that dude, he’s just my friend.” Nuh-uh. You’re not fooling my autistic ass. You’re in love with him. And sure enough, she was.

Her mom wants her to get back to college because she worked hard to afford that. Too close home (even though Polish unis are free).

Another scene. I can tell where this is going: he cheated, she’ll be heartbroken, she’ll abandon her plans for recording a demo and go to college.

Yup. She did.

And then, the movie got weird. “Rap is not poetry.” “We didn’t turn our backs on hip-hop; hip-hop turned its back on us.” “You’re not qualified for our discourse because you treat rap as equal to poetry.”

What.

Like... I know about the prejudice towards rap; I myself had it and had to open my mind for rap. But the whole “you can’t attend our lectures because of your belief in rap” felt stretched. No one asked me whether I support or oppose English Gothic literature. No one asked me whether I was a second-wave or a third-wave feminist. Whether I believe in evolution or Adam and Eve. I just attended lectures and tried to memorize shit for exams.