Despite being made in Czechoslovakia in 1947, Václav Krska’s regrettably obscure Az se vrátís… (US: When You Return) feels a lot like French poetic realism of the 1930’s: the romanticizing of poverty and desolation, the intentional blend of reality and artifice, the elaborate tenement building set that rivals Marcel Carné’s Hotel du Nord (1938). A bleak tale of hope and futility released one year before the Communists seized total control of the country, the film stars Otýlie Benísková as Monika Sachová, a lonely, old fortune teller who’s been waiting for years for her son to come home from prison (she’s surrounded by pet birds, also incarcerated). Monika carries a particular satchel with her at all times, fueling the imaginations of her many discontented and penurious neighbors who suspect she’s in possession of money, jewels, or other untold valuables, plotting ways to snatch the bag, up to and including murder. When son Vladimir (Václav Voska) seizes on an opportunity to escape, he makes his way home to Monika but arrives to a cruel slap from the hand of chance. Krska and crew employ glorious mise-en-scene, cameras floating up and down and around, overhead shots of nightclub stages and bustling courtyards, the final 20 minutes or so a fantastic descent into a visual noir world. Václav Krska would go on to direct one of the greatest European noirs, Road Back, toward the end of the cycle in 1958.