Best movie of this year hands down!

How sad is this?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Those who did not live in Europe during WWII tend to have questions about what really happened during those years of Nazi influence. How can a society allow the atrocities to happen? How much did the citizenry know of the death camps and the atrocities? What psychology was at work that would allow someone like Hitler to ascend to power?Although we may not receive answers to all our questions in one film, "The Shop on Main Street" is one of a number of films that help explain. The shop in question is owned by an older Jewish lady. It is situated in a small town that is nothing special. Use of the term "Main Street" lets us know that this is supposed to be a typical street, a representative street.The story takes place during the time that nationalism and anti-Semitism are becoming synonymous in the region. Opinions that might have existed for many years are now able to be voiced in the mainstream and have even become the voice of the government.Much of the film is viewed from the perspective of Tony Brtko, a gentile who has been given the opportunity to assist the elderly shop owner. He is a simple man--one who, perhaps, would rather not contemplate questions of political philosophy or confront questions of allegiance. But such is his lot when the authorities begin to round up the town's Jews.Through the windows of the shop, which is located right on the town square, he is able to view the "outside" world as it changes before his eyes. Questions of morality are thrust upon him.The single aspect of this film that I like the most is the director's use of the camera. It gives us a POV, it moves through a window and gives us both the inside and outside views of happenings, it lingers on objects, giving them importance and making them the focus of tension, allowing us to consider what we have seen before the story continues. It wanders sometimes, seemingly making an inventory of the surroundings, perhaps following Tony's eyes as he considers his options as his options become fewer and fewer. Like most good films, it allows the camera to show us rather than have the dialogue explain to us. Note how it sometimes follows the dog going on with his "doggy life"*.This is an excellent film. Its ending is a little ambiguous, allowing the viewer to make his own interpretation or to ask questions of himself. It is worth seeing twice.*reference to Musee des Beaux Arts, by W. H. Auden.

"Ich Tanze Mit Dir In Den Himmel" has been a famous German Schlager of the 50ies. The dance has here not a choreographic but a metaphysical function: it bridges between life and death, expressing either the resolved joy of having been able to let back the heaviness of earth, or, preferably, as disguising means in front of the nothing sensed as Horror Vacui. In order to show the relevance of this observation for "Obchod Na Korze" (1965, directed by Jan Kadar and honored by a Oscar for Best Foreign Film of the Year), I have to disclose some details that some readers may interpret as spoilers.Slovakia, Rosenau/Rozsnyo (where Peter Lorre alias Laszlo Löwenstein was born), one thousand years Hungarian, since 1920 part of the newly found Cseh-Slowak Republic, 1942. Late like almost everywhere in Eastern Europe, the Nazis invade the Pre-Carpathian lands and hurry to evacuate all Jews in order to transport them to Russia. But here is on Main Street the little Shop of the widow Lautmann, 78 years old, alone, practically without income, profiting from the benefits of the Jewish community. And there is, a little distant, on his farm, the carpenter Brtko who is under pressure of his beautiful, but stupid and in the end brutal wife - and also of the husband of her sister, one of those who have read very early the signs of time and joined the National Socialist Party.Kolchozky is one of those who is charge for the extirpation of Jewishness in Rosenau. And he charges his slightly deficient brother-in-law Brtko as "Arizator" ("Arianizator"), responsible for taking over the little shop of Panie Lautmannova. However, Brtko is a man with his heart on the right spot. Pushed aside himself by society, he feels pity with the old and deaf Mrs. Lautmann as tries everything to save her life. However, one night, when the evacuation of the Jews has become ready, he looses his nerves, when the alphabet of the called-up names approaches the letter "L". In an overreaction, he forces the old woman into a cabinet and wants to deliver himself to the Nazis in order to save the old woman's life, although what await himself is death.But in the same moment, when he opens the door to deliver himself, the troupe starts to march, Mrs. Lautmann has simply been forgotten, and all his panic was in vain. When he hurries back to open the door of the cabinet, he find that Mrs. Lautmann is death, fallen over some furniture in her cabinet, possibly caused by his hasty hiding of her. Becoming aware of what he has done, he sees a hook in the roof, fetches a rope and hangs himself up. The music that starts Stante Pede, leads back to an earlier scene where Mrs. Lautmann is grieving about her deceased husband. The camera does not show the dead body of Brtko, but instead of that, the film becomes purposely overexposed, the door of the shop opens by itself, and in glorious sways out to the street are floating the rejuvenated Rozalia Lautmannova and Tona Brtko, dancing into the light. - All those who have had the pleasure to see R.W. Fassbinder's "Despair. A Trip into the Light" (1978), know: This is not the light of heaven, this is the light of darkness, not the brightly shining Pleroma (to say it in terms of Gnosis), but the light of the Kenoma.

This is one of the most emotionally powerful movies i have ever seen and I have no idea why isn't more well-known as it it should be. For me it carries more of a punch than 'Schindler's List' and in terms of anti-war films it is possibly the finest i have seen. I love the fact that the main character is just an everyday, little man just trying to get by who, over the course of the film gets provoked into action and not a 'hero' by any typical standards. The film has a down-to-earth tragic beauty that just really captures one's attention and the whole movie is utterly gripping and captivating.Amazing performances by the two main characters and a climax that just left me speechless - i can't recommend it highly enough. One of my top 10 movies ever made.

Those who decide to watch that movie, may see just a Nazi damaging the Slovak society by exterminating Jewish members. However, we can ask ourselves a question if Jan Kadar really meant to show how awful was the German occupation, the killings, and servility of some of the citizens to the occupant, or maybe he had something different in mind.Maybe we can actually read between the lines and realize that bringing back those difficult moments from history was supposed to be a way to send a message to younger generations showing the hidden truth of the times they were living in. If we look deeper into the history, which is depicted in the film, we will see that "The Shop on Main Street" was made during, so called communism, and it is showing the similarities between the years when Germans took over the country and the time when Soviets spread their "wings of protection" through Central and Eastern Europe. Different ways of thinking were not allowed in the corrupt societies of Eastern Block.The disagreement with the government was foreseen as doing against the socialism, and punished. That is why instead of direct critic,many artists chose various subject to show the madness of the entire ideology. The censorship forced not only Kadar but also other directors and artists to use allegories to hide the obvious truth. "The Store on Main Street" is a perfect example of that kind of approach,and at least for that reason as well as for its other qualities worth to be seen.