#130 - The Shop on Main Street

This was a great film and the 1965 Academy Award winner for best foreign film.  It's a product of what we would call the Czech New Wave, and featured some masterful acting.

The year is 1942, and a small village is starting to deal with the effects of Aryanization and the Nazi Ruling party starting to remove the Jews from their conquered territories.  A small carpenter is given the chance to take over a Jewish Widow's shop, but her inability to understand his role ends up with him more or less becoming her assistant rather than her boss.  In the end he's more her protector, repairing her furniture, and looking out for her as events ramp up in the 2nd half of the film.   The first hour or so is almost comedic and humorous, but as the film winds along, he has to determine if he is going to help the innocent, or collaborate with the regime coming to deport the Jews for the Holocaust..   This film is done without any shock or trauma as you might expect, but it ends up being the kind of film where you quietly watch in horror knowing what is going to happen, but is never said or seen on camera.   A woman cries out for a son who's missing, and she tells the protagnist to let her boy know where she is so he can join her, and inside you're recoiling as you realize if he does show up, it's a death sentence.  You also see the transformation of people who know what is right and are willing to do it turn into people desperate to save their own skins.

Meanwhile you see it all occurring, literally, from the p.o.v. of the Shop on Main Street listed in the title - it ends up becoming where everything plays out or where we see everything playing out.

I'm always fascinated by movies that happen under these Communist Regimes, and in this case it does make it a pretty good anti-Nazi film.   It's comedic and tragic, and is part of a big batch of Czech New Wave films currently showing up on the Criterion Channel this month as part of their features.

This kind of film is why I do this - otherwise it would have escaped my radar but it's a masterpiece of a film.