Pulling Together Uneasily in Extraordinary Times

It’s been 35 years since the great days of the Czech New Wave and incandescent films like Milos Forman’s “Loves of a Blonde,” Jiri Menzel’s “Closely Watched Trains” and Ivan Passer’s “Intimate Lighting,” yet watching Jan Hrebejk’s “Divided We Fall” brings it all back. Not only is the film that good, it’s also that wonderfully, inescapably Czech.

Poignant, humanistic and irresistibly comic, “Divided We Fall” has that characteristic national ability to distill laughter from painful situations, to maintain a delicate, razor’s edge balance of humor, pathos and potential tragedy. It was one of the five films nominated for this year’s best foreign-language Oscar, and in a year without “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” it might well have won.

Set during one of the most divisive periods in Czech history, the World War II German occupation, “Divided” is a tale of the moral complications and farcical chaos that result when a couple decide, half against their will, to shelter a Jewish concentration camp escapee in their small apartment.

Though the film has some of the same elements as Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful,” director Hrebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchovsky, friends and collaborators since high school, have opted for quite a different tone. This is a comedic film that never oversentimentalizes, where ironies are plentiful yet unforced, and characters, even theoretically negative ones, are not denied their humanity or their complexity.

“Divided’s” sharpness is evident from its unusual opening, a trio of abbreviated but to-the-point vignettes set two years apart, each one adding to the back story as well as advancing the narrative in crucial ways.

The first scene, set in 1937 outside an unnamed Czech town, shows a gentle moment involving the three men the story will center on: David (Csongor Kassai), the son of a wealthy Jewish industrialist; the family chauffeur, Horst (Jaroslav Dusek); and Josef (Boleslav Polivka), the head of the company’s sales division.

Next, it’s 1939, and David and his parents are forced by the Nazis to abandon their grand house. Then it’s 1941, and David and his parents are leaving the spare room in the apartment of Josef and his beautiful wife, Marie (Anna Siskova). (The spare room is intended for the children they cannot have.) The apartment’s been the trio’s home for two years, and now they’re headed for a work facility called Thierenstadt that they hear is quite nice.

The bulk of “Divided” takes place two years later still, in 1943, and starts with the sudden reappearance in town of a fugitive, ghost-like David, a man who looks like he’s returned from the dead and, as an escapee from a concentration camp, almost literally has.

A series of coincidences put David and his former employee in touch once more, and Josef and Marie agree to hide the hunted man in a secret pantry in their apartment. Not because they’re eager to, not because they’re stereotypically heroic, but because the other alternatives are even more unpalatable.

It’s a decision that is laden with complications, from the silly--Josef, a decent man but a perennial grumbler, is reluctant to give David his favorite blanket--to the more serious. Horst, the former chauffeur, is not only a powerful and active Nazi collaborator, but also a not-so-secret admirer of Marie, and so, likely to drop by the apartment at the most unexpected and inopportune moments.

It’s these complications that lead both to “Divided’s” fine comedy (a classic farce sequence takes place in the couple’s bedroom) and its more serious themes, including the inevitability of compromise, the true nature of integrity, and the promise of redemption. “You wouldn’t believe,” a weary Josef tells David, “what abnormal times can do to normal people,” to which David quietly replies, “Yes, I would.”

Though its performers are unknown to American audiences, this story is exceptionally well-cast and acted with uniform grace. It’s never judgmental, and the film’s serious, reserved tone makes its comedy that much funnier and unexpected. In completely mad times, just holding on to your sanity can be an exceptional feat, and this excellent film shows how it’s done.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for some violence and sexual content. Times guidelines: adult situations.

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‘Divided We Fall’

Boleslav Polivka: Josef Cizek

Anna Siskova: Marie Cizek

Jaroslav Dusek: Horst Prohazka

Csongor Kassai: David Wiener

Jiri Kodet: Dr. Fischer

Released by Sony Pictures Classics. Director Jan Hrebejk. Producers Ondrej Trojan, Pavel Borovan. Executive producers Ondrej Trojan, Total Helpart (T.H.A.) Film Company, Pavel Borovan Creative Group, Czech Television. Screenplay by Petr Jarchovsky, based on his novel. Cinematographer Jan Malir. Editor Vladimir Barak. Costumes Katarina Holla. Music Ales Brenzina. Art director Milan Bycek. Running time: 2 hours, 2 minutes.