Word: britko
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...plot concerns a poor Czechoslovakian farmer named Tono Britko who becomes the "Arvan manager" of a button shop owned by Mrs. Lautmann, an aging Jewess. The other Jews in the village pay Britko to protect the old woman until deportation orders bring an end to the arrangement. Britko must then decide whether he will hide Mrs. Lautmann from the Nazis or protect himself by sending her away...
...Britko's agony of conscience becomes everyman's agony as the film, initially a simple piece of village comedy, shifts into social criticism and ultimately into tragedy. As Kadar once said, the story of Mrs. Lautmann "could be transplanted to a Negro woman in Alabama, or a woman awaiting deportation to Siberia in Stalinist Russia, but why should we go outside our own country?" Kadar's genius, however, consists in focusing upon Britko, the best of the typical villagers. When Britko finally breaks down, the social order of the village has reached its nadir...
...emphasize their point, the directors use the camera as the eyes of Tono Britko. We view the world through a rum glass as Britko dances in a drunken stupor and we awake with him the next morning to find the camera turned upside down. Soon we become vicarious inhabitants of his village. We walk next to him along the main street as he tips his hat to friends and we cringe with him when a troop of Nazi soldiers passes...
...music likewise mirrors Britko's thoughts. When he looks up at a church steeple, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" briefly enters the soundtrack. A bittersweet fiddler's tune of his dilemma, while a full choral anthem accompanies his moment of decision. Finally, the cheerful and ubiquitous band music characterizes the optimism about human nature which Kadar and Klos insist on maintaining through the entire film...
...enter Britko's fantasies as he pictures a dream world of dazzling sunshine (shot by superimposing the characters on an overexposed setting) where he and old Mrs. Lautmann can stroll elegantly along the shadows and sunrays, listening to the town band. But the blare of the Nazi band returns him to reality. The audience undergoes a similar fantasy sequence at the end of the film, which is broken finally by the lights of the movie theater as the film ends...