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Empties
Amanda Bishop
Issue date: 11/17/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment
This week, BUFS and TESL Niagara are proud to present Empties (Vratné lahve), the highest grossing Czech film of all time.
Empties tells the story of Josef (Zdenek Sverák), a disgruntled high school teacher who finds himself at loose ends when he abruptly retires. Frustrated with his home life and newfound wealth of free time, he looks for work and eventually takes a job in the bottle-return department of a grocery store. Here, surprisingly enough, he finds his niche as a matchmaker. The only person who isn't happy about his meddling is his long-suffering wife, Eliska, to whom he has to prove his love before the movie's end.
This is the third film in a trilogy from director Jan Sverák and his father, writer/actor Zdenek Sverák, which started in 1992 with The Elementary School (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture) and was followed with Kolya in 1996. Kolya, the story of a five-year-old boy who goes to live with a grumpy cellist in Prague, won the Best Foreign Picture Oscar in 1997.
Empties, the highly anticipated final installment, has been a long time coming. Creative difficulties between father and son about the feature's progress and execution make up part of Jan Sverák's 2004 documentary about his father, Tatinek. But when the film was released in the Czech Republic in 2007, the reception was enthusiastic, to say the least. Now, two years later, Canadian audiences finally have a chance to see what all the fuss is about.
Empties screens Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Empire Theatres, Pen Centre. Visit brocku.ca/bufs for details.
-Amanda Bishop
Empties tells the story of Josef (Zdenek Sverák), a disgruntled high school teacher who finds himself at loose ends when he abruptly retires. Frustrated with his home life and newfound wealth of free time, he looks for work and eventually takes a job in the bottle-return department of a grocery store. Here, surprisingly enough, he finds his niche as a matchmaker. The only person who isn't happy about his meddling is his long-suffering wife, Eliska, to whom he has to prove his love before the movie's end.
This is the third film in a trilogy from director Jan Sverák and his father, writer/actor Zdenek Sverák, which started in 1992 with The Elementary School (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture) and was followed with Kolya in 1996. Kolya, the story of a five-year-old boy who goes to live with a grumpy cellist in Prague, won the Best Foreign Picture Oscar in 1997.
Empties, the highly anticipated final installment, has been a long time coming. Creative difficulties between father and son about the feature's progress and execution make up part of Jan Sverák's 2004 documentary about his father, Tatinek. But when the film was released in the Czech Republic in 2007, the reception was enthusiastic, to say the least. Now, two years later, Canadian audiences finally have a chance to see what all the fuss is about.
Empties screens Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Empire Theatres, Pen Centre. Visit brocku.ca/bufs for details.
-Amanda Bishop
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