Jiri Menzel fills his film with compositions that have deep meaning in them. We watch as Milos' mother "crowns" him with his cap before his first day of work. He is becoming a man. And Menzel's addition of Milos' great grandfather and grandfather's stories adds to the potential for what we can expect before the end of the film for Milos' journey.
While the film begins simply as a story about a boy seeking to become a man through sexual experience, it soon becomes so much more. He shows us a tale of youth who is bombarded with larger than life feelings of inadequacy that he has no one to speak to about, thus he attempts to take his life. And soon after Menzel reveals the common problem among many youths. Menzel then contrasts Milos' actions with Hubicka's, who is a man much older that Milos but who acts as a child.
Menzel brings the film to a crushing close when Milos, having to take on the responsibility of planting the bomb for Hubicka loses his life. Seeing Milos being shot and carried off by the Nazi train before it explodes creates the reality that war claims the youth of our world, and not only does it claim it, it destroys it. Thus, Menzel makes a large statement about the idea that war is not just a grown man's battlefield, but it reaches into the small towns, into the budding relationships and into the hearts of every person over the world.
