SOURCE: Annan, Gabriele. “Broken Blossoms.” New York Review of Books 42, no. 7 (20 April 1995): 15-16.

In the following review, Annan focuses on the pessimistic outlook, cynicism, and sense of disillusionment that pervades Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light.

A short time before the Velvet Revolution a peaceful demonstration marches through Prague with banners calling for LESS SMOKE, MORE AIR. The police are ready with their truncheons and water cannon; Pavel is standing ready with his television camera and the van with the State Television logo on it. “The clash would be as absurd as all the others before it,” he thinks,

but there was no stopping it. Everyone knew this: those who would administer the beatings and those who would be beaten. This utter certainty transformed the raw determination on both sides into movements that almost seemed preordained.

It is also preordained that most of Pavel's footage will...