Divided we fall = Musime si pomahat [DVD]

Beginning in 1937, and taking us through to the end of World War II, “Divided we fall” follows the fate of three men who were all colleagues when the war began. David Wiener (Csongor Kassai) is the son of a Jewish family who own the business in which Josef (Bolek Polivka) and Horst (Jaroslav Dusek) work. The Wieners are taken to the death camps of Poland but David manages to escape and find his way back to his Czech home. He finds a population cowered into subservience and suspicion from the years of Nazi occupation. But the childless Josef, and his wife, Marie (Anna Siskova), take in the fugitive David and hide him in their pantry. Horst, whose social standing has increased due to his collaboration with the Germans, is a constant visitor at Josef and Marie’s, and their attempts to hide David from him bring a rich vein of humour to the film. And then, as if a miracle, Marie falls pregnant! The strength of “Divided we fall” is that in the midst of modern European history’s darkest tragedies, the director Jan Hrebejk, is able to create a humane comedy in which questions of loyalty and forgiveness loom much larger than desires for retribution and revenge. There is a revisionism undoubtedly at work in the film: the Resistance is purged of Communism and the Czechs are always the unwilling dupes of the Germans. But for the bumbling, foolish humans at the centre of “Divided we fall”, politics is never a consideration. Universalism and humanism are the driving forces behind the ethics of this film. Nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 2001 Academy Awards. Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2001 Sydney Film Festival.