My review was written in March 1992 after a screening at MoMA in Manhattan.
Nominated for this year's foreign-language film Oscar, the Czech comedy "Elementary School" is a funny but thin exercise in nostalgia set in 1945 and 1946, that makes a few political points.
Debuting director Jan Sverak shows competence in staging clever gags and recreating an era with flamboyant crane shots, but the script by his dad (and pic co-star) Zdenek Sverak is not up to snuff.
The elder Sverak, who previously wrote Jiri Menzel's wonderful "My Sweet Little Village", portrays a power station worker nicknamed "Transformer". His 10-year-old son Eda (Vaclav Jakoubek) is in a class of bad boys who literally drive their teacher (Daniela Kolarova) nuts with their pranks.
Replacement teacher is a disciplinaria (Jan Trika, familiar from many Hollywood films) who claims to be an anti-Fascist war hero. Though he applies frequent corporal punishment the boys come to revere him.
Between the funny sight gags from the young cast, the film's main subplot involves Triska's amorous adventures with nearly every pretty girl in sight, which almost cost him his job.
Script's sardonic jabs at the "model socialist state" being nurtured in Czechoslovakia after the war are old-hat, as is the pic's overall theme about true heroism (Eda's dad) vs. Celebrity (his teacher).
Attractive camerawork of the countryside, occasional musical nods and scenes involving Eda and his young friend Tonda (Radoslav Budac) pay homage to Bernardo Bertolucci's epic "1900". Film's light tone and sentimentality owe much to the work of directors Menzel and Karel; Kachyna, both of whom pop up in cameo roles.
Acting by Triska, Sverak and the supporting ensemble is uniformly good.
Nominated for this year's foreign-language film Oscar, the Czech comedy "Elementary School" is a funny but thin exercise in nostalgia set in 1945 and 1946, that makes a few political points.
Debuting director Jan Sverak shows competence in staging clever gags and recreating an era with flamboyant crane shots, but the script by his dad (and pic co-star) Zdenek Sverak is not up to snuff.
The elder Sverak, who previously wrote Jiri Menzel's wonderful "My Sweet Little Village", portrays a power station worker nicknamed "Transformer". His 10-year-old son Eda (Vaclav Jakoubek) is in a class of bad boys who literally drive their teacher (Daniela Kolarova) nuts with their pranks.
Replacement teacher is a disciplinaria (Jan Trika, familiar from many Hollywood films) who claims to be an anti-Fascist war hero. Though he applies frequent corporal punishment the boys come to revere him.
Between the funny sight gags from the young cast, the film's main subplot involves Triska's amorous adventures with nearly every pretty girl in sight, which almost cost him his job.
Script's sardonic jabs at the "model socialist state" being nurtured in Czechoslovakia after the war are old-hat, as is the pic's overall theme about true heroism (Eda's dad) vs. Celebrity (his teacher).
Attractive camerawork of the countryside, occasional musical nods and scenes involving Eda and his young friend Tonda (Radoslav Budac) pay homage to Bernardo Bertolucci's epic "1900". Film's light tone and sentimentality owe much to the work of directors Menzel and Karel; Kachyna, both of whom pop up in cameo roles.
Acting by Triska, Sverak and the supporting ensemble is uniformly good.