FILMS/
I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND
Obsluhoval Jsem Anglického Krále
World Cinema
Czech Republic, 2007, 120 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Wed, Apr 30 / 6:00 / Kabuki / ISER30K
Sat, May 3 / 9:00 / Kabuki / ISER03K
CREDITS
- dir
-
Jirí Menzel
- prod
-
Robert Schaffer, Andrea Metcalfe
- scr
-
Jirí Menzel
- cam
-
Jaromír Sofr
- editor
-
Jirí Brozek
- mus
-
Ales Brezina
- cast
-
Ivan Barnev, Oldrich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda
- source
-
Sony Pictures Classics, 550 Madison Ave, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022. EMAIL: info@spe.sony.com
I Served the King of England marks the return of director Jirí Menzel, master filmmaker of the Czech New Wave. The story, told in flashbacks, concerns the rise and fall of an amorous and opportunistic apprentice waiter. Jan Díte is a little man with a big appetite for discreet sexual encounters and worldly success. His coming of age at various grand hotels exposes him to the lifestyles of the upper crust, the crčme de la crčme of 1930s Czech society, and a taste of their self-indulgent and carefree extravagance fuels his ambition. Soon he lands a job at a prestigious luxury hotel, where a chance encounter with a Sudeten German activist leads to a newly varnished Aryan identity. As the hotel changes hands from private ownership to the grip of the German SS, he finds himself in one of the Lebensborn breeding resorts designed to spawn the Aryan master race. It appears he finally has it made, but with the Germans occupying Czechoslovakia he is unfortunately on the wrong side of history. Luscious to look at, this finely crafted film is based on the picaresque novel of Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997), a frequent Menzel collaborator who inspired a generation with his lyrical yet unsentimental view of 20th century life.
—Janis Plotkin
West Coast Premiere. Sponsored by Dolby Laboratories.
