I caught this film a couple of weeks ago, in the morning. I didn't have to be at work for several hours, my wife had left, and I was looking for a reason not to get out of bed. I was looking for such a reason in the television. It was kind of a fluke that I hit the Independent Film Channel. I remembered that channel 550 was one of the channels we occasionally checked on, so I punched that in.
I was intrigued immediately, despite the fact that the scene was simply three people having dinner: a young wife and her slightly older husband, and a substantialy older boor of a man who dominated the conversation. The decor (as well as the synopsis given by the "info" button), made it clear this took place in Czechoslovakia during World War Two. They were eating a pig's head and had lots of food laid out. The young couple's tension made it clear they were at great risk, having hoarded this much much food and served such a feast. The boorish man went on about how nice it was of them to help him by feeding him this way, how these were the sorts of things friends did to help each other. But it was obvious he had some power over the married couple, and that they did not want him there. They were anxious about what he might do, and about something else, and they did their best to lighten the situation with casual conversation. But every time they said something, the boorish man cut them off. Finally, the doorbell rings and the couple has to pick up the entire feast by balling it into the tablecloth and throwing it into the pantry, where you catch a glimpse of a man hidden there in the dark. The boor tells them that to divert suspicion, they should skin a rabbit and make it look like they were having a simple dinner. So now they have to waste a rabbit as well as a massive, illegally stored quantity of pork.
I got all these details from five random minutes in the middle of a movie because, gee whiz, those Czechs could act. A gesture here, a forced smile there, a reluctantly chewed mouthful of food. I was in agony for them. It turns out the boorish man was a supposed nazi sympathizer who had been a friend of the family before the occupation. The couple is hiding a Jew in their pantry, and to keep suspicions away from themselves, they have to pretend to support the Nazis, too. This is very hard on the husband, who now faces ridicule from people in his community who once thought him a decent man. Oh, and the couple has been trying to have kids for years, without success. This is important, later on.
Okay, I don't want to give away any more of the plot, because this is now one of my few favorite movies* which I immediately want everyone to see. So I'll just make vague bullet points about why it was awesome:
- The leading actress was completely lovely in a way no American actresses are ever lovely.
- The characters were human beings which did not have pre-assigned roles obvious from the beginning of the movie. Nobody was the hero, nobody was the villian--not obviously. Everyone struggles with their choices, and everyone does things they are proud of and things they are not.
- The plot twists genuinely shocked and surprised me. It was complex and surprising, but also perfectly sensible and simple to follow.
- The camera took time to dwell on faces. The faces said as much as the dialog.
- It also captured the spirit of an Eastern Europoean town at that time. It took time to dwell on details. The architecture, a cobblestone street, the way the leaded windows opened. The world felt old and comfortable, and all the more vulnerable for that.
- The characters changed. Aren't characters supposed to change, as they move through stories? When's the last time a film character changed in a way that surprised you?
- The film was subtitled. The characters were speaking, I would imagine, Czech. I find Russian and Eastern European languages charming, when spoken by men, and when spoken by women, downright sexy.
I've said that the film I blogged about yesterday, Life is Beautiful, had the humor/horror slider pushed too far to the funny side. The slider in this film was pushed pretty heavily in the other direction. In fact, I thought the info button made a mistake with it's classification of "humor." Clearly Italian and Czech interpretations of humor are very different. The Czech take on Humor, for whatever reason, resonates deeply within me.
I've enjoyed the animations of Jiri Trinka, and many of the qualities he captured with clay were present in this movie: a patient appreciation of subtlety and detail, ambiguity, natural beauty mixed with fear and horror. Is it only the Czechs that do this so well? Is it an Eastern European thing? Russia too? And why them? And what other movies and animations should I seek out?
Please tell me, because this movie was as if custom built for my personality, and I want to find others like it.
.....
* Other favorite movies:
And I think that's about it. In fact, I generally don't even like movies. Which is why I only write about them when I'm pretty enthusiastic, one way or the other. And why I only watch half of them, if I can get away with it.
Yours,
Nate
