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I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglickeho krale) is a sort of history of the former Czechoslovakia told as a black comedy.
The central character, Jan Dite, initially describes himself as a small man from a small village, but the vertically challenged hero is really the oblivious everyman in a tiny country undergoing huge change. Dite, with his focus on money and getting ahead, just doesn't notice.
I Served the King of England opens outside a correctional facility in Prague, where Dite (played as an older man by Oldrich Kaiser) is being released after a lengthy prison sentence.
He tells the story of his life in flashback, beginning with his work as a hotdog salesman at the train station.
Here is Dite as a young man (Ivan Barnev), a wide-eyed innocent soon learning the ways of the world at a fancy hotel in Prague. He is fascinated by the effect a handful of scattered coins has on the rich -- they crawl on all fours to pick up money -- and he determines to be a millionaire and to own his own hotel.
The story unfolds like a fairy tale for adults; Dite is dense and greedy and hugely successful with women. (Various surreal sex scenes end with Dite decorating his naked lady friend with flowers or fruit. It's catchy, the first time.)
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Dite is impressed with the lives lived by the rich wastrels he waits on at the next luxury hotel where he works, a hotel which appears to be either a fancy brothel or a bizarre fantasy. The landscape is given over to sweaty lechers and wine, women and song. It's a palace of excess, this place, and the action is dream-like and exaggerated.
Dite moves on to a magnificent hotel in Prague, but now the tone of the film changes. He hears a speech from Hitler, but it makes absolutely no impression on him. Having proved himself to be virile enough to wed a superior German woman (Julia Jentsch), he does just that. Dite eventually finds himself all the money he needs to have his own hotel. Then the war is over and the communists arrive to take it all away from him.
I Served the King of England moves back and forth between Dite's youthful adventures and his somewhat wiser, more philosophical older self, but the two sides never really mesh.
The movie has long sequences with no dialogue but the sort of music and choreographed action that make them like something Busby Berkeley would have produced for MTV.
Dead weird, in other words, and always vaguely disturbing, which would be the point. The trouble with I Served the King of England is that it's sometimes bizarre and clever and often visually wonderful, but you never forget that you're watching a movie. And it does go on.
The film (which has subtitles) is directed by Jiri Menzel (Closely Watched Trains) and is an adaptation of a Bohumil Hrabal novel.
I Served the King of England was the Czech Republic's submission earlier this year for foreign-language Oscar.
(This film is rated 14-A)