The film sort of naturally divides itself into three parts. In the first, we get the impression that we're about to witness a slow, slice-of-life movie about a small town in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation. It's not entirely without interest but it looks like it's going to be a long slog. We meet Jozef Kroner, the central figure, a lazy carpenter with a loving but exasperated wife, and we meet his brother-in-law, an anti-Semitic fascist guard in his gestapo uniform. The brother-in-law visits Kroner's family, bringing gifts of food and rum gotten from his many connections. There follows a realistic scene in which the family gets drunk and argue, in between songs, until finally the men fall on the floor, pulling the tablecloth with them. A perfectly normal family evening.
The second introduces us to the town itself, including those members of the community who are Jewish. Kronin's brother-in-law is in the process of "Aryanizing" the town. The process involves sending a Christian into a Jewish business and having him act as manager and clip the profits. As a "favor", the brother-in-law arranges to have Kronin become the Aryan of a shop on Main Street. "You'll be a rich man!" he promises. But the favor is done out of spite. It's a tiny button shop with an apartment in the back. And it's run by a sweet, generous, but feisty old lady (Ida Kaminsky) who is impaired by age to the point at which she can't really understand what people are trying to tell her. For that matter, she can't HEAR them. "Selling buttons is not man's work," Kroner complains, and he's not very good at it. A comic scene has him trying to cope with a shop full of babbling housewives and spilling boxes of buttons all over the floor. Eventually, Kroner and Kaminsky form a bond. The friendship makes him protective and her maternal.
The third part gets entirely serious and involves the rounding up and deportation of all the Jews in the village. Here, the movie is weaker than it should be. We've grown to like Mr. Katz, the barber, and when his shop is taken over and Aryanized and he leaves, we're sad, while Katz himself is more philosophical. A Christian friend who tries to hide him is beaten and driven through the village square with a sign hung around his neck -- "Jew Lover." But when the Jews are being assembled in the square -- one by one, with that long long list of names being read through a loudspeaker -- and Kroner is torn by fear, the instinct of self-preservation, and a desire to hide Ida Kaminska, who is unaware of what's going on, the scene is naturally tragic, but it's overwrought too. It goes on too long. With Kaminska in her apartment, saying the prayers for the Sabbath, Kroner drinks a whole bottle of vodka while pacing around the shop, talking to himself, wild-eyed and manic. His final attempt to save her ends tragically for both of them.
The genocidal program of the Nazis was such a monstrous event that it's difficult to deal with a movie that describes it, without the movie itself being near perfect. The terrible fate of so many millions of innocent people of all ages has to be treated carefully or else the movie comes across as an easy tear-jerker, demeaning and cheapening the event itself.
This is a fine movie. It doesn't make an overly obvious grab for one's humanity, but that final scene seems to be drawn out and Kroner's final act hasn't been adumbrated. Still well worth seeing.
The second introduces us to the town itself, including those members of the community who are Jewish. Kronin's brother-in-law is in the process of "Aryanizing" the town. The process involves sending a Christian into a Jewish business and having him act as manager and clip the profits. As a "favor", the brother-in-law arranges to have Kronin become the Aryan of a shop on Main Street. "You'll be a rich man!" he promises. But the favor is done out of spite. It's a tiny button shop with an apartment in the back. And it's run by a sweet, generous, but feisty old lady (Ida Kaminsky) who is impaired by age to the point at which she can't really understand what people are trying to tell her. For that matter, she can't HEAR them. "Selling buttons is not man's work," Kroner complains, and he's not very good at it. A comic scene has him trying to cope with a shop full of babbling housewives and spilling boxes of buttons all over the floor. Eventually, Kroner and Kaminsky form a bond. The friendship makes him protective and her maternal.
The third part gets entirely serious and involves the rounding up and deportation of all the Jews in the village. Here, the movie is weaker than it should be. We've grown to like Mr. Katz, the barber, and when his shop is taken over and Aryanized and he leaves, we're sad, while Katz himself is more philosophical. A Christian friend who tries to hide him is beaten and driven through the village square with a sign hung around his neck -- "Jew Lover." But when the Jews are being assembled in the square -- one by one, with that long long list of names being read through a loudspeaker -- and Kroner is torn by fear, the instinct of self-preservation, and a desire to hide Ida Kaminska, who is unaware of what's going on, the scene is naturally tragic, but it's overwrought too. It goes on too long. With Kaminska in her apartment, saying the prayers for the Sabbath, Kroner drinks a whole bottle of vodka while pacing around the shop, talking to himself, wild-eyed and manic. His final attempt to save her ends tragically for both of them.
The genocidal program of the Nazis was such a monstrous event that it's difficult to deal with a movie that describes it, without the movie itself being near perfect. The terrible fate of so many millions of innocent people of all ages has to be treated carefully or else the movie comes across as an easy tear-jerker, demeaning and cheapening the event itself.
This is a fine movie. It doesn't make an overly obvious grab for one's humanity, but that final scene seems to be drawn out and Kroner's final act hasn't been adumbrated. Still well worth seeing.