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The Shop on Main Street (Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, 1965)
Let me start off by saying that this film was made in 1965 in what was Czechoslovakia at the time. It's one of the most-bittersweet films ever made, and I find it to be one of those films where, after maybe 35 minutes in, you feel like you're eavesdropping on real life. It's about the Holocaust at the beginning of 1942, just after Germany occupied the country, so it's pretty specific, but even if it wasn't about something so profound, the honest sharing and caring of the main characters would still make this a great film. The crystalline black-and-white photography ranks with the greatest ever depicted in a film, and this too adds to the film's verisimilitude. Throw in the ominous music score, and things certainly seem to not be especially kosher in this seemingly-friendly town where all the "good people" go for strolls on Sundays after church while listening to the town's band playing lovely waltzes.
The film stars two actors whose performances are so perfect that, first of all, they don't seem to be acting at all, and second, they almost seem to be two different sides of the same person, even though they probably couldn't be any more different. Jozef Króner plays Tony, a poor carpenter (is this film really a Christian allegory?) who's informed one night by his fascist brother-in-law that he will become the "Aryan administrator" of a Jewish button shop owned by an elderly widow named Rosalie (Ida Kaminska, Oscar-nominated) who seems to have very little grip on reality, even though she always knows what day is the Sabbath, and she's well-aware that her husband died giving his life for his country during WWI. Tony is initially frustrated by Rosalie's "blindness" and "deafness", but he's quickly won over by her humanity and kindness. As things escalate in his village, and it becomes clear that all the Jews will be transported to concentration camps, Tony does all he can to protect Rosalie, even when it goes against his wife's feelings and those of that meddlesome brother-in-law who keeps lurking around the shop.
The film does begin slowly, but the pacing actually works to its benefit. It becomes clear that Tony is unhappily married and that he doesn't measure the worth of his life the same way as his wife or the other fascist Slovakians who are toeing the Nazi line for their own benefit. Then, Tony learns that Rosalie's shop is utterly worthless and that she's only able to live from the alms of the Jewish community, and this same community rallies around Tony because they feel he is "truly a good man" and wants him to look out for the old woman. All this leads to one of the most heartbreaking, yet uplifting, endings ever filmed. Give The Shop on Main Street a shot and see if it digs deeply into your heart, almost surreptitiously, until you have almost no control over yourself at the film's conclusion.
Let me start off by saying that this film was made in 1965 in what was Czechoslovakia at the time. It's one of the most-bittersweet films ever made, and I find it to be one of those films where, after maybe 35 minutes in, you feel like you're eavesdropping on real life. It's about the Holocaust at the beginning of 1942, just after Germany occupied the country, so it's pretty specific, but even if it wasn't about something so profound, the honest sharing and caring of the main characters would still make this a great film. The crystalline black-and-white photography ranks with the greatest ever depicted in a film, and this too adds to the film's verisimilitude. Throw in the ominous music score, and things certainly seem to not be especially kosher in this seemingly-friendly town where all the "good people" go for strolls on Sundays after church while listening to the town's band playing lovely waltzes.
The film stars two actors whose performances are so perfect that, first of all, they don't seem to be acting at all, and second, they almost seem to be two different sides of the same person, even though they probably couldn't be any more different. Jozef Króner plays Tony, a poor carpenter (is this film really a Christian allegory?) who's informed one night by his fascist brother-in-law that he will become the "Aryan administrator" of a Jewish button shop owned by an elderly widow named Rosalie (Ida Kaminska, Oscar-nominated) who seems to have very little grip on reality, even though she always knows what day is the Sabbath, and she's well-aware that her husband died giving his life for his country during WWI. Tony is initially frustrated by Rosalie's "blindness" and "deafness", but he's quickly won over by her humanity and kindness. As things escalate in his village, and it becomes clear that all the Jews will be transported to concentration camps, Tony does all he can to protect Rosalie, even when it goes against his wife's feelings and those of that meddlesome brother-in-law who keeps lurking around the shop.
The film does begin slowly, but the pacing actually works to its benefit. It becomes clear that Tony is unhappily married and that he doesn't measure the worth of his life the same way as his wife or the other fascist Slovakians who are toeing the Nazi line for their own benefit. Then, Tony learns that Rosalie's shop is utterly worthless and that she's only able to live from the alms of the Jewish community, and this same community rallies around Tony because they feel he is "truly a good man" and wants him to look out for the old woman. All this leads to one of the most heartbreaking, yet uplifting, endings ever filmed. Give The Shop on Main Street a shot and see if it digs deeply into your heart, almost surreptitiously, until you have almost no control over yourself at the film's conclusion.