Cinema
The Shop on Main Street
Obchod na korze
Ján Kadár · 1965
Synopsis
In 1942, in a small town in eastern Slovakia, the fascist state applies the Nuremberg laws and hands Jewish businesses over to non-Jewish Slovaks. The carpenter Tóno Brtko, pushed by his wife Evelína, accepts, thanks to his brother-in-law Markuš Kolkotský, the town's commander, to be appointed Aryan administrator of the haberdashery of the old widow Rozália Lautmannová. Almost deaf, she does not understand what is happening, and Brtko, who hides the truth from her, passes himself off as her new employee.
Context
Ladislav Grosman drew the screenplay from his own short story, Past, which appeared in 1962 in the magazine Plamen and only became a book in 1965; Kadár and Klos directed the film at the Barrandov studios. Shot from 12 May to 5 November 1964, largely in Sabinov, with Jozef Kroner opposite the Polish actress Ida Kamińska, it was released in Prague on 1 October 1965. Presented in competition at Cannes, where it received a special mention, it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and Kamińska was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress the following year.
Who it is for
Two hours in black and white; a historical tragicomedy that slowly slides into drama.
Prizes and reception
The first Oscar for Czechoslovak cinema, for Best Foreign Language Film, and the only Slovak film to have won an Oscar; a film praised by critics for its psychological accuracy.