AllMovie

For millions of individuals, a state of personal exile - permanent or semi-permanent emigration to a foreign country - marks one of the inevitable consequences when one's homeland is overtaken by totalitarian forces. Czech documentarist Jana Boková is one of those individuals; when a brutal regime cracked down on Czechoslovakia, Boková high-tailed it to South America and settled in Argentina, where she lived for many years afterward. With her film Bye Bye Shanghai, Boková reflects on the personal nature and meaning of exile, as it manifests itself in the lives of people from varying backgrounds and walks of life. She thus journeys from one member of the Czech diaspora to another, sizing up their views on this topic. Interviewees appearing in the film include: translator and poet Petr Král; philosopher Václav Belohradský, and singer-songwriter Vlasta Trešnák.