Vesnicko má stredisková

At the beginning I thought this might be rather arty and hard to follow, but it develops into a pleasing story of relationships in village and working life that at times is hilarious. It came out two years after Local Hero to which there appear to me to be quite a few nods.

There are good characters across the generations. The humour is witty, with some darkness and good quality slapstick. Some of the comedy was crafted in a very unexpected way that really made me chuckle and admire the writing and execution.

I felt for the pigeons.

I don't know how many movies from the Eastern Bloc people in the US got to see during the '80s. Among the good ones were the Soviet Union's "Voyenno-polevoy roman" ("Wartime Romance" in English) and Hungary's "Jób lázadása" ("The Revolt of Job" in English).

And then there's Jirí Menzel's Academy Award-nominated "Vesnicko má stredisková" ("My Sweet Little Village" in English). This lighthearted Czechoslovakian comedy focuses on a couple of things. The main plot is the relationship between truck driver Pávek and his colleague Otík, who has trouble understanding things (it's not clear if he's merely simple-minded or developmentally disabled). But then there's also an unfulfilled wife's trysts with a veterinarian, and a teenage boy's obsession with a local teacher. Quite a bit's going on in this town.

The characters, while flawed, are shown to be well-meaning. One thing that I noticed was that the teenage boy had a shirt saying UNIVERSITY UTAH. I will forever wonder how someone in a small town in the Eastern Bloc got his hands on such a shirt. Other than that, some of the characters' hairdos mark this as an '80s movie. Not a masterpiece, but an enjoyable one. Screenwriter Zdenek Sverák, who also appears as the painter, is best known for the Oscar-winning "Kolya".

Probably worth mentioning that the R in the director's name has a diacritic, but IMDb no longer allows diacritics on consonants.

I watched this movie for about 30 minutes, as I understand it already touched upon everything that happens in the village. One of the main characters is an autistic person, "a village idiot". I felt pain watching this person. However "authentic" the portrayal of the village in the 80s in Czechoslovakia might be, I am not sure I can feel the humor here as so many situation show relatively pitiful existence of the village idiot. Though it is great to see that the community is making an effort at helping him adapt, it is also taking advantage of him. It is the reality, but from the perspective of me, a person living in an urban setting, where various things are done to make disabled feel more empowered, the village community seems some steps behind. As portraying this condition, which can never be helped ('he either strikes or has killed himself') -- the movie is very very sad, not a comedy at all. I still gave it 4/10, because of the atmosphere of the village that it creates, and it is very interesting from historical perspective.

Czech comedy about the occupants of small village, focussed mainly on the lives of driver / odd job man Pavek and his trials and tribulations with his working mate Otik, who is rather simple. It becomes so much hassle it is decided to move Otik away to Prague.

Very gently, somewhat Tati-esque take on the many eccentric characters in the village and the trouble they get into. It is slow, gentle, often quite funny and indeed very sweet and certainly worth catching.

The doctor keeps crashing his car, the lorry driver is fed up with his simpleton mate and plots to move him to Prague, the girls no longer wear bras and there's flirting, drunkenness, infidelity, and even the odd punch-up. There are hints of darker bureaucratic inadequacies (this film was made in the final years of the Communist regime), but director Jiří Menzel's loving observations of Czech village life are wryly humorous, and this is principally a gentle and affectionate paean in which nothing much happens except the ebb and flow of village life — the eternal nature of which is hinted at by the circular ending. A subtle joy from start to finish. Czech DVD has moderately reliable English subtitles.