Alois Nebel

When I think of animation, I think of motion but A.N. prefers to allow stillness to tell most of its story. That moribundity is a stand-in for despair and Kafkaesque government oppression. The upward emphasis here is light and dark and their constant interplay, both literally and as metaphor. Men are dwarfed to insignificance by uncaring worlds of incandescence and shadow. Hardly an easy watch, but worth your time.

I saw an announcement for this movie which included a screenshot: I barely read the synopsis and went, and I'm very glad I did! The black and white images, gradually including shades of grey, are beautiful and captivating, though of course haunting given the movie's theme. It's a story of loneliness, old crimes, and ethnic hatreds fueled by WWII. Worth watching also to learn something about the fate of that part of Europe. I'm not sure whether someone already mentioned this, but I think it would be nice for viewers to know that Nebel = fog in German.

tough as in this - the events it depicts is very central Europe specific, so not sure if it will convert well to unless for the more curious and exploring minds.

although I admire the director being relatively young and chooses to do this instead of some action video movie. the scenes/shots/drawings are beautifully done - apparently added a layer of gray on top of the original comic of just black and white. Rotoscoped to be exact.

Not just picture, but sound is striking. Storey wise I have not read the original and would like to know what they did or did not leave out. But he pacing, the style of not overly informative - that you have to read/think/digest is what I prefer.

saw this at 2011 tiff. gives me a very strange combination of feelings of grim/guilt/inescapable and yet ephemeral beauty.

Have you ever seen any Czech film? Wheter yes or not, this movie is perhaps the best shot taken in Czech Republic for ages. A great story about how a single person can face consequences of his memories, bad experience and false people surrounding him. If you ever felt lonely, all the scenes, the entire movie, would definitely capture you! Alois Nebel is a story about how a common people lived in an era, when the loneliness was everywhere, when working on a railway station was about self-fulfillment and when living in a virgin nature somewhere near to Czech-Polish frontiers was as great as living in a heaven. This movie is worth of every penny!

The Czech Republic's (or is it now Czechia?) submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film focuses on a man whose memories haunt him during a crucial point in the country's history. Tomás Lunák's* rotoscoped "Alois Nebel" has as its protagonist a man working at a train station on the Polish border in 1989. He remembers the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. He begins to suffer hallucinations, but it's never totally clear what's real and what isn't, even as the Soviet-backed regime collapses and Havel's government takes over.

This is one of the most haunting movies that I've ever seen. The animation is done like a graphic novel (and in fact is based on a trilogy of graphic novels), with everything made to look dismal. Even if a lot of the content is a cultural thing, you can't deny that they made one outstanding movie here. I recommend it.

*For some reason, IMDb no longer lets users write diacritical marks on consonants.