FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | review: Vratné lahve (Empties) (KVIFF 2007) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Thursday, 05 July 2007 | |
 For Vratné lahve (Empties), the Czech father and son duo Zdenek and Jan Sverák only slightly rework the recipe for their Oscar-winning film Kolya. Zdenek again wrote the screenplay and stars as the protagonist with the Sean Connery-beard while Jan is at the helm and the story again involves a middle-aged man who enjoys life and ladies even as he is expected to comply with more domestic duties -- in Kolya taking care of a child and in Vratné lahve of his wife. The high quantity of been-there-seen-that moments did not hurt Czech boxoffice -- the film is the most visited local production of the year, even before Menzel’s Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále / I Served the King of England -- but might prove more problematic abroad, also because this new film misses the obvious socio-political and artistic hooks that made Kolya such as success. Tkaloun (Zdenek Sverák) is a retired secondary school teacher from Prague who refuses to spend his last days in the rocker chair at home with his wife Eliska (Daniela Kolárová). After an unsuccessful stint as a bike courier, he finds his place at the empty bottle counter of a supermarket, where each bottle, as his wife predicted with a groan, seems to be returned by a lovely lady (apparently Czech men only empty bottles but don’t bring them back). Tkaloun uses his considerable charms not only for his own benefit, however, but also helps out two womanless colleagues, an ex-colleague from school and his own daughter and succeeds in pushing the sales of the day’s promotional offers at the same time. As in Kolya (which makes a cameo appearance here in the form a TV guide listing), the comedy is of the gentle kind and because Sverák and Kolárová are utterly believable as man and wife, it is not hard to swallow the idea that he is a ladies man who still loves his spouse and she is woman in love with her husband and would like him to be home with her just a little bit more. Set-up and pay-off are all according to the book but strong acting and the sheer lovability of the characters make it pleasant and funny nevertheless. At over 100 minutes, the film sometimes runs into dull patches and could use a good 15-minute trim to tighten its narrative and pace the comedy more evenly. An eventful ride in a hot air balloon (also the climactic scene in another recent Czech film: Ondricek’s Grandhotel) is superbly staged but feels like it belongs in a different film. The grandiose outdoor setting and reconciliatory dialogues in this section do not really gel with the rest of this small-scale story that happens mostly indoors. Sly if slight commentary on how man’s warmth is easily replaced by machines if it saves money is the only political content to speak of; a commentary on the evolution of Czech society or the transformative power of the arts and parenting -- all part of Kolya -- this is not. This film was screened as part of the 2007 Karlovy Vary Film Festival. |
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