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The Shop on the High Street AKA Obchod Na korze
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Second Run Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (1st September 2016). |
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The Film
 Oscar (Best Foreign Language Film): The Shop on Main Street (won) Academy Awards 1966 Oscar (Best Actress in a Leading Role): Ida Kaminska (nominated) - Academy Awards, 1967 Golden Globe (Best Actress - Drama): Ida Kaminska (nominated) - Golden Globes 1967 Special Mention: Ida Kaminska and Jozef Kroner (won) and Palme d'Or: Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos (nominated) - Cannes Film Festival 1965 Golden Plate: Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos (won) - David di Donatello Awards 1967 NYFCC Award (Best Foreign Language Film): The Shop on Main Street (won) and NYFCC Award (Best Director): Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos (3rd Place) - New York Film Critics Circle Awards 1966 Slovakia 1942: Having achieved independence from Czechoslovakia in 1939 with the encouragement of the Nazis, the Slovak state adopted a Jewish code which would eventually lead to the deportation of the territories Jewish citizens to Nazi camps in 1942 under the supervision of the paramilitary troop known as the Hlinka Guard (named after the late Catholic priest who formed the People's Party in the 1930s) under Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka (who had spent the ten years prior to independence in prison for his links to the Nazis and anti-Semitic propaganda). Mild-mannered carpenter Tóno Brtko (The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday's Jozef Kroner) gets on well with the town's Jewish population and just about everyone else apart from his brother-in-law Markus (The Devil's Wall's Frantisek Zvarík) – a leading member of the town's Hlinka Guard – who he believes has not only cheated him out of him and his wife's share of her inheritance but has also excluded him out of all the town's laborers from the construction of the town's "Tower of Victory"; as such, he not only endeavors to avoid the other man but also makes a show of his disdain for the uniform by refusing to salute when members pass by. Markus does indeed have a grudge against his brother-in-law, blaming his own failure to advance further in the party on embarrassment over Tóno's refusal to join the Guard. Turning up at his home with wine, rich foods, and expensive gifts, Markus appoints Tóno as "Aryan controller" of a haberdashery belonging to the widow Lautmann (The Angel Levine's Ida Kaminska) which he assures Tóno will yield a healthy income that will allow Tóno's wife Evelyna (The Years fo Life's Hana Slivková) to put on the same airs as her sister Ruzena (Demons Are Calling's Helena Zvaríková). In spite of his wife's henpecking, Tóno does love her and wants her to better provide for her but he finds himself ashamed when he shows up at the widow's shop and Mr. Kuchar (The Square of Saint Elisabeth's Martin Hollý) – a friend of the Jewish community – comes upon him trying to explain who and what he is to the deaf widow, feebly explaining that if it were not him, it would be someone else. Kuchar takes a little pleasure in telling him that his brother-in-law has cheated him by appointing him a shop that is worthless – while seeming to secure Tóno's loyalty in the eyes of the party – explaining that the town's Jewish community has been keeping the widow Lautmann in business out of kindness by buying unneeded items from her depleted stock; however, Kuchar persuades him to take the position as he would prefer to have someone decent as "Aryan controller" or "benefactor" promising him a regular income with Kuchar explains to the old woman that Tóno is a nephew come to help her in the shop. At home, Tóno boasts to his wife of the authority of his new post while attempting to make himself useful in the shop by making repairs. Although the widow does not understand Tóno – and either cannot or will not comprehend the political situation and their opposing sides – the pair seem to form an intimate bond talking at each other and seeming to share similar sentiments if not shared meaning; indeed, at one point after Lautmann has outfitted him in her husband's old suit (which he claims makes him look like Charlie Chaplin), Tóno dreams of what their relationship would have been like were they contemporaries in age in an idyllic past version of the town in which the "Tower of Victory" – or the "Tower of Babel" as the Jewish citizens refer to it – is absent. Having stuck his head in the sand and mostly paid lip service to political conversations, Tóno attempts to continue on doing so as whispers throughout the town reach him – by way of Piti (The Nun's Night's Adam Matejka) who lost his job as town crier when the Guard installed a loudspeaker and has been appointed to deliver the deportation notices – foretell of the supposedly temporary deportation of Jewish citizens to work camps. Soon Kuchar can no longer be relied upon for information as he has been branded by Markus as a "Jew lover", beaten, put on display for the town. With the deportations of those instrumental in "employing" Tóno imminent, he no longer cares about money and is instead concerned over the well-being of the widow Lautmann. Vacillating desperately between the hope that her advanced age will exempt her or that his brother-in-law will make an exception, and plotting with Piti to hide the widow yet no more able to convey the urgency of the situation to her than to explain his role as "Aryan controller", Tóno is reduced to railing to God ("What have I done to deserve this?"), blaming the widow for who she is in the equation, and begging her to understand what must be done ("That's the law; it can't be helped"). The 1966 Academy Award-winner for Best Foreign Language Film The Shop on the High Street (released in the United States as The Shop on Main Street) methodically depicts the manner in which – in the words of Blu-ray distributor Second Run's advertising materials – "how minor compromises can finally lead to complicity in the horrors of tyranny." Lightly comic in its first half – with Markus looking as much a pompous buffoon to Tóno's straight man as the kindly but oblivious widow, and Tóno himself in contrast to the wiser Kuchar and the others who seek to subvert the laws against the Jews to helpful ends – the film lulls the viewer over its comparatively epic two-hour-plus running time into accepting a sweet story about a different type of wartime collaboration and bonds of friendship that cross politically-defined boundaries. Despite the accumulation of disquieting sights and overheard dialogues, the invested viewer is as unprepared as Tóno for what we know will happen historically; and the only then do filmmakers Elmar Klos (Bizon) and Ján Kadár (Lies My Father Taught Me) let us fully realize that we have witnessed the formation of the implacable situations of those who have given themselves over little by little in the face of everyday fascism – represented by the Hlinka Guard and their insignia with nary a swastika in sight – by just trying to keep ones head down. Although the affecting Kaminska was internationally recognized for her performance (including an Oscar nomination the year after the film won for Best Foreign Language Film), Kroner does the real emotional heavy-lifting as he is nearly driven mad in the climax and finally to the depths of utter despair (not having the courage or the conviction to be defiant if only on principal with no hope of changing the outcome). In spite of the film's own international recognition and awards, it would be banned in 1968 by the Russians during their occupation of Czechoslovakia who would attribute "Jewish influence" to the film's Oscar win. Kadár and Klos made one more feature in Adrift before Kadár decided to pursue a career in America. Klos remained in Czechoslovakia, penning two major texts on filmmaking after he was fired from the studio and his job as film school lecturer (he was able to return to teaching in 1989).
Video
Previously released on DVD in the United States by the Criterion Collection in 2001, Second Run's third Blu-ray release is derived from a brand new HD master produced by the Czech National Film Archive. The Blu-ray reveals more picture information on the left over the Criterion disc while sacrificing a sliver on the right. Contrast is also lighter overall on the new transfer, with truer whites where there was once gray. More detail is generally visible but the bright sky backgrounds do make some details like power lines less evident. Minute damage like scratches and reel change marks have not been cleaned up.
Audio
The sole audio option is a LPCM 2.0 mono Czech track which is relatively clean with some depth in the score of Zdenek Liska (The Cremator), the more pointed and piercing outburst of Tóno, and the loudspeaker which becomes omnipresent in the latter half of the film. Optional English subtitles offer a slightly different and sometimes superior translation from the Criterion.
Extras
The disc's major extra is An Appreciation by Michael Brooke (40:00) in which he expounds on the film's themes, its more subtle touches (including the widow mishearing Tóno's given name and referring to him as "Krtko" or "mole"), the careers of the two directors (as well as the creative division of labor on the film), and its reception. The film's digitized US Press Kit is also included. Packed in with the disc is a twenty-page booklet by Peter Hames in which he covers similar ground to the appreciation from his own more specialized perspective as the author of a number of works on Slovak and Czech cinema and filmmakers.
Overall
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