The Shop on Main Street (Obchod Na Korze, Jan kadar og Elmar Klos, 1965, Czechoslovakia)


At heart the film is the story of two diffirent people, a poor man and an old jewish widow which it takes place during the occupation of Czechoslovakia during World war II. The man is appointed the aryan controller over the widow, who is old and has lost her hearing, and has to look after her and her little buttonshop. The man is best described as a loser but he means the woman well but when he´s pressured by his brother-in-law and the tighening grip of the Nazi claw over the country, he must find a way to protect the old lady.

The film was very well recieved and won an Oscar for best foreign film and Ida Kaminska was nominated for best actress for her portrayal of the old widow. The film was made during the height of communist control in eastern Europe. And it depicts the horrors of the Nazi totalitarian regime and the relaitionships between people in times when jews and “aryans” were not allowed to congregate.

One of the film´s directors, Jan Kadar, is a jew and he spent WWII in a Nazo labor camp. The film is very close to his heart since his parents and sister all died in Auschwitz during the holocaust. Instead of filling the film with heavy judgements Kadar concentraits on the human realationship of the man and the old widow, their friendship.