Far Too Relevant

Oh goody, a movie about people going along to get along. 

The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze, 1965)

One of the benefits of doing the Decade Project is that sometime I'll run across something that is critically acclaimed both then and now and also...has far too much relevance to the modern world.

Such is the case with The Shop On Main Street, which takes place in a small town in the FIrst Slovak Republic during World War II. (It was a puppet state to Nazi Germany that fully participated in everything.) And here we have Tóno Brtko (Jozef Kroner in a damn good performance), a sadsack local carpenter for the town who is trying to stay out of everything as his brother-in-law Markuš has become the commander of the military in town. Tóno's wife is on him to get a position with Markuš and get along, but Tóno resists until Markuš forces the issue and puts him in charge of one of the last Jewish shops in town as the Aryan controller for a widow, Rozália Lautmannová (Ida Kamińska), an elderly Jewish woman who hasn't been keeping up with events at all.

And so we get the majority of the movie, almost a comedy of errors where Tóno tries to explain the new situation to Rozália, a very nice old lady who Tóno gradually develops a friendship with and helps keep the shop running even as he knows more and more how it will all turn out. Meanwhile those in town who speak out against the Hitlerites are quieted and deported and the pogrom gets ever closer. (There's a moment where the local Jewish barber, Mr. Katz (Martin Gregor), is almost whimsical as he talks about the upcoming deportation and how they've been promised to be returned by autumn. He certainly knows how much of a lie this is but he's trying to put on a brave face.)

And then...it happens. No more comedy of errors. No more excuses. No more ways for Tóno to just go along. And a devastating ending with a fantasy sequence that makes it all the more horrible. It's a great movie that is just...too damn relevant.

★★★★★ / ★★★★★

1965- Written by Ladislav Grosman, Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos.  Directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos.