Mon cher petit village

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.

My review was written in May 1986 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"My Sweet Little Village" finds director Jiri Menzel in the warm winning form of his "Capricious Summer" as well as other more recent of his pictures such as "Cutting It Short". This comedy about small-town life in Czechoslovakia is a modest but very entertaining opus, and elicited a rarely heard ovation at its conclusion upon screening in one of the smaller salles in the Cannes market.

Simple story emphasizes situation comedy and running gags as bumbling young Otik, thought by his friends and neighbors to be mentally retrded, is rejected by his older workmate, Mr. Pavel, on delivery jobs. Pavel is not the only one tired of Otik, as an influential type is working on getting the boy transferred to a job in Prague so his local house can be lucratively modernized and resold, complete with an "English garden".

There are all sorts of goofy local intrigues, such as the young married woman who is always conspiring to get Otik out of his house (one time he is sent off to catch a "must-see" Romanian film) so she can dally there undetected with her young boyfriend. The town doctor (Rudolf Hrusinsky) is forever crashing his car into almost everything in its path, and though he is sympathetic, he is given to talking his patients out of their symptoms rather than prescribing any treatment.

Using a lowkey, simple style that perfectly snatches the rural setting and unsophisticated characters. Menzel very warmly coaxes humor out of familiar material. Some of his running gags are priceless and no matter what happens, including inevitable physical violence (as in the cuckolded husband's reaction), there is no hint of malie here. Menzel very gently pokes fun at the provincialism of his countrymen, in a universal way, as when two guy discuss how the bra-less look has caught on in the West -and how glad they are it has spread as far as their village.

Cast is uniformly excellent as an ensemble, with stalwart Rudolf Hrusinsky particularly delicious as the doctor.

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.

Many of the scenes are known, quotations got integrated into the common language.. but I have never really seen the entire movie... always just parts doing something else while the movie was going on the TV...

I do not know whether I would appreciate it if not knowing so many scenes, lacking the cultural link, or the image about village life... but I personally really enjoyed the movie!

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.