Mon cher petit village

This movie is far from legendary Yugoslavian comedies, but it doesn't try to be like that. It's literally, as one review already said, a movie about a life in a little village. It's heart warming and relaxing to watch, albeit a little depressing in some ways. You won't die from laughter, but there are a few funny scenes sprinkled throughout the movie. I give it 8/10 and I recommend it. It's still by miles a better comedy than some recent movies from Hollywood who claim to be good comedies.

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.

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.

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.

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.