# Musíme si pomáhat (2000)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

    DIVIDED WE FALL (Musime si pomahat)

Reviewed by Harvey Karten Sony Pictures Classics Director: Jan Hrebejk Writer: Petr Jarchovsky based on his novel Cast: Boleslav Polivka, Csongor Kassai, Jaroslav Dusek, Anna Siskova, Jiri Pecha, Martin Huba, Simona Stasova, Vladimir Marek, Jiri Kodet, Richard Tesarik

Let's say a crisis erupted in parts of America. The KKK goes wild and in one town is determined to lynch every African-American it can find. White homeowners are warned to turn in every Black man they can find and, of course, to refuse to shelter any who ask for protection. Those homeowners who defy the rule will themselves be strung up. A breathless, confused, and frightened Black man turns up at your doorstep asking you to hide him. You have an available room. What would you do?

A similar situation actually faced Europeans during the period of World War II 1939-1945, a time that Nazi stormtroopers and their collaborators moved to sweep towns in occupied Europe clear of Jews. Some good people took the ultimate risk and hid those who implored them to do so. (The people who did so at the risk of their lives are celebrated in Israel to this day, called "Righteous Among the Nations"). Others helped in a similar way but demanded money in return. The majority refused to do so, because they took part in the anti-Semitism that was Europe's affliction for centuries or because they simply feared for their lives.

"Divided We Fall," a work first produced for Czech TV by Jan Hrebejk based on Petr Jarchovsky's novel and screenplay, is based on a true event that took place within one family during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. What is astounding about this film is that while it mines territory similar to that excavated by "The Diary of Anne Frank," the two-hour production is peppered with wit and humor during this most trying of times--waggery that fits right into the story rather than being shoehorned in as Roberto Benigni did with his fine but often forced "Life is Beautiful." Here is a film loaded with ironies, twists, and surprises which can easily keep the audience heads spinning. The photography is superb, particularly for a TV-produced work. In one case, for example, cameraman Jan Malir points his lens down on an evil doctor (who sterilized one hundred gypsies) at such an angle that the man look like a forties incarnation of Nosferatu. At several points, when humor takes a back seat to rising tension, Malir resorts to slo-mo photography to simulate a sudden, dramatic turn of events.

The story centers on Josef (Boleslav Polivka) and his wife Marie (Anna Siskova), a childless couple living in a small Czechoslovakian town during the Nazi occupation of their country. When a Jewish neighbor whom they had always liked, David Wiener (Csongor Kassai), suddenly shows up, emaciated after having escaped from the Theressenstadt concentration camp just before he was to be shipped to a death camp in Poland, Josef (reluctantly) and Marie (with more enthusiasm), give him shelter. They stash him in a small room Anne-Frank style, warning him not to leave the place except for a few moments at night for fear that not only David but also Josef, Marie, and in fact every resident of the block would be shot.

The bulk of the movie's humor is evoked by a neighbor, Horst (Jaroslav Dusek), whose pencil-thin mustache and enthusiastic "heils" mark him as a collaborator of the occupying Germans. Since he is attracted to Josef's wife Marie, he is a frequent, unannounced visitor to the table, supplying the couple with food confiscated from the departed Jews--a man who is slowly suspecting the big family secret. The boorish, motor-mouthed Horst cracks his knuckles insistently, and in one instance attacks Marie when he virtually forces her to take a ride with him. But Horst will supply one of the story's two great twists, the other occurring when a novel solution is found to Marie's inability to bear children.

Brimming with tension, wit, humor, surprise, a taut plot, and a stirring panorama of what happened when a small town is within the power of a brutal subjugation, "Divided We Fall"--in the expert hands of the director who had previous dished out a box office success "Cosy Dens"--brings to vivid life the tribulations and even the joys of normal people whose loyalties are tested in abnormal times. "Divided We Fall" is the excellent choice of the Academy, among the five nominees for best foreign-language movie of the year 2000.

Not Yet Rated. Running time: 123 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com

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