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The Shop on Main Street
(1965)
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lovakia during WW2. Tono lives a poor life, but the authorities offer him a take over the Jewish widow Lautman's little shop for sewing material. She is old and confused and thinks that he is looking for employment and hires him. The odd couple begin to like each other. But some time later the authorities decide that the Jews must leave the city. What should he do with the old lady? |
Winner of the 1965 Oscar for best foreign film, this tragicomedy from Czech film-makers Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos is an intimate portrait set in Nazi-occupied Slovakia of two simple people destroyed by the occupation. Traditional yet uncompromising, it's exquisitely sensitive, brilliantly played and utterly heartbreaking. Oscar-nominated, 66-year-old Ida Kaminska gives a miraculous performance as an elderly Jewish woman who owns a little button shop of which a humble carpenter (a superb Jozef Kroner) is appointed “Aryan comptroller” by the occupiers. He discovers that Kaminska's stock of buttons is depleted almost to nothing, and that she's totally deaf and quite unaware of the war. His growing affection for her leads Kroner into muddled efforts to protect her, with tragic results for both of them. Have the Kleenex to hand, but don't miss it.
Halliwell's Film Guide
A rather obvious sentimental fable, developed at too great length, but with bravura acting.
