Based on the best-selling book by Bohumil Hrabal,
and winner of the Critics' Award at the Berlin Film Festival and pleasing
crowds wherever it goes, this hugely entertaining saga from veteran
Czech director Ji¡rí Menzel follows a diminutive train-station
sausage seller over the course of four decades on his journey to bus
boy and millionaire hotelier, before ending up as a disgraced Nazi collaborator.
Jan Dít¡e - played with just the right note of cheeky innocence
by Bulgarian actor Ivan Barnev - is an ambitious go-getter whose only
wish in life is to become stinking rich. Landing a job at a luxurious
Prague hotel in the 1930s, Dít¡e stealthily climbs the
career ladder and happily indulges in the hedonism that surrounds him.
This is a world where beautiful women gladly sprawl nude on a rotating
centrepiece for the enjoyment of wealthy diners, and even though Dít¡e
is technically still a servant, he enjoys his fair share of the spoils.
As World War II approaches and the Germans occupy Czech lands, Dít¡e
falls in love with Líza, a propaganda-spouting Nazi (Julia Jentsch,
last seen doing just the opposite in Sophie Scholl) who only
agrees to bed Dít¡e when she learns he has German blood.
Scorned by his countrymen for marrying the enemy, Dít¡e
is all but oblivious to the politics that surround him, even as he is
hired to impregnate Teutonic goddesses in an Aryan breeding centre.
"With its visual humor (including inspired moments of slapstick),
brilliant incorporation of music, and naive but likable pint-sized lead
character, Menzel has created a decidedly Chaplinesque farce with a
very modern flair... A sexy bit of satire... easily one of the cleverest
and wittiest comedies to come out of Europe in recent years." -
filmbrain.com
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