FILMS/
GRANDHOTEL
World Cinema
Czech Republic, 2006, 95 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Sun, Apr 29 / 09:15 / Kabuki / GRAN29K
Thu, May 3 / 06:45 / Kabuki / GRAN03K
Sun, May 6 / 02:45 / Clay / GRAN06Y
CREDITS
- dir
-
David Ondrícek
- prod
-
Krystof Mucha, David Ondrícek
- scr
-
Jaroslav Rudis, Pavel Jech
- cam
-
Richard Rericha
- editor
-
Michal Lánsky
- mus
-
Jan P. Muchow
- cast
-
Marek Taclík, Klára Issová, Jaroslav Plesl, Jaromír Dulava, Dita Zábranská
- source
-
Lucky Man Films, Masarykovo na’br 10, 120 00 Prague, Czech Republic FAX: +420-224-911-676 EMAIL: martina@luckymanfilms.com
This poignant romantic comedy is set in and around a hotel, but any resemblance to the Garbo-Barrymore classic of the same name is accidental. Director David Ondrícek’s reference point isn’t pre-Reich Berlin but the Czech New Wave and the rueful comedies that defined it. The action unfolds at the circular Hotel Jested, a weird and wonderful ’70s artifact perched on a hill high above the northern Bohemia town of Liberec. (It’s useful to know that Liberec’s predominantly German population was expelled after World War II and replaced by Czechs.) Fleischman is an erstwhile employee and 30-year-old virgin with his head in the clouds. Literally, for he ducks out on the blustery observation deck three times a day to chart the weather, as he has for the past 23 years. The tentative Fleischman (he’s the kind of guy that everybody, including himself, calls by his last name) is intrigued with the inscrutable dark-haired maid Ilya, but she’s entangled in a long-term relationship with greasy waiter Patka. Too bad our hero can’t see that another employee, Zuzana, has eyes only for him. Each of these likeable losers is stuck in place, trapped in a story or self-appraisal wholly of their own creation. Jaroslav Rudis’s script provides a bemused, empathetic slant on the travails of being in one’s 20s, while Ondrícek’s regular composer Jan P. Murchow, of the band The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, contributes a quirky score that mirrors the protagonists’ ambivalence and confusion. If there’s any hope of our winsome foursome getting out—and getting on with their lives—Fleischman holds the key.
—Michael Fox
North American Premiere. In Czech and German with English subtitles. Sponsored by Joie de Vivre Hotels and the Galleria Park Hotel.