Divided We Fall

This highly successful occupation comedy is another co-operative effort from the creative team of screenwriter Petr Jarchovský and director Jan Hřebejk. The filmmakers look at the period of Czech occupation under the Nazis with detachment, comic exaggeration and an understanding of human weakness. The story, which contains moments of surprising tension, was drawn from actual events. Josef Čížek is the film’s melancholy hero, a pensioned, small-town clerk forced by circumstances to hide a young escaped Jew and then suffer grievously from the fear that his heroic deed will be exposed. The situation is dramatically complicated mainly by the Czech-German collaborator Prohaska who can’t hide his predilection for Josef’s charming wife Marie. The film was a box-office hit, it won five Czech Lions and the Czech Film Critics’ Award, and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The movie also contains a short animated recreation of a period newsreel by the Czech illustrator Pavel Reisenauer.