In Leaving – much ridiculed and torn to pieces before it even opened, by people who had not seen it – Václav Havel certainly breaks taboos, mercilessly lashing out at politics and politicians, ruthlessly mocking and generally exposing the political mechanisms of power in a painful and brutal satire the like of which has not been seen before. His satirical vaudeville, whose plot is quite familiar from his theatre productions, is supported by outstanding acting, a fact acknowledged both by the film’’s critics as well as those who respond with aggressive doggedness to the mere utterance of the demiurge’’s name. […]