Pavel Landovsky Movies

The long-anticipated seriocomedy Empties constitutes director Jan Sverak's third installment in his trilogy on aging that commenced with The Elementary School (1991) and continued with the beloved Kolya (1996). The filmmaker's father, Zdenak Sverak, stars as Josef Tkaloun, a curmudgeonly middle-aged lit teacher who grows exhausted from instructing his demanding, occasionally obnoxious students, and opts to take a hike - into an early retirement. Though his wife, Eliska (Daniela Kolarova) (to whom he has repeatedly been unfaithful) continues to tolerate his insensitivity, Josef quickly recognizes his own need for a daily grind, and thus heads into a series of random occupations, including bike messenger and bottle retriever in a grocery store. The latter proves particularly colorful, introducing Josef to a host of eccentric and occasionally funny co-workers. Meanwhile, Josef makes feeble attempts to set his hyper-devout daughter (Tatiana Vilhelmova) up with a crass former coworker (Jiri Machacek), and lapses into lusty fantasies about the headmistress of his former school (Nela Boudova) - endangering his marriage in the process. At the time of its release, this film reportedly netted a greater profit than any movie in Czech history. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Set in swinging contemporary Prague this light drama centers on a hip-young newspaper photographer who takes an aerial photograph of a peaceful village and discovers that he has taken a picture of a murder in progress. His editor shows no interest in the photo, but Ondrej, the photographer, cannot forget it and so embarks upon his own investigation of the crime. This attracts the attention of Rychman, a powerful, corrupt businessman who pressures Ondrej for the negatives. When that fails, he attempts to convince the newsman that he only witnessed a harmless game of paint ball, not an actual shooting. Rychman then amiably invites Ondrej up for a posh party in his villa. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

It is just after the end of World War II in the new communist state Czechoslovakia, and the powers that be have decreed that the state will maintain a sizeable army. This spoof follows the adventures of one non-combatant regiment, the Black Barons, who spent the entire wartime period working in a quarry. Now they are attempting to behave like proper communist soldiers, but even the officers haven't got even the vaguest notions of Marxist doctrine. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In Philip Kaufman's surprisingly successful film adaptation of Czech author Milan Kundera's demanding 1984 bestseller, Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, an overly amorous Prague surgeon, while Juliette Binoche plays Tereza, the waiflike beauty whom he marries. Even though he's supposedly committed, Tomas continues his wanton womanizing, notably with his silken mistress Sabina (Lena Olin). Escaping the 1968 Russian invasion of Prague by heading for Geneva, Sabina takes up with another man and unexpectedly develops a friendship with Tereza. Meanwhile, Tomas, who previously was interested only in sex, becomes politicized by the collapse of Czechoslovakia's Dubcek regime. The Unbearable Lightness of Being may be too leisurely for some viewers, but other viewers may feel the same warm sense of inner satisfaction that is felt after finishing a good, long novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Bernard Safarik based this straightforward story on his own experiences, and on Czech writer Jaroslav Vejvoda's stories about the difficulties of Eastern European refugees -- both in obtaining a visa and later adjusting to life in a new country with a different socio-economic system. The film focuses on a Czech artist bent on leaving Prague for Switzerland, showing that his visions of a new life and how to reach it are routinely shattered by the everyday reality of finding asylum. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime was a sprawling fictional account of American manners and mores in the years between 1900 and 1913. Among the mosaic of colorful factual and fictional characters in the novel were escape artist Harry Houdini and radical Emma Goldman. Both characters are all but eliminated in the film version, which only concentrates on three of Doctorow's many plot threads: The story of an immigrant artist (Mandy Patinkin) who becomes a movie director; the saga of "Gibson Girl" Evelyn Nesbit Shaw (Elizabeth McGovern), for whose sake playboy Harry K. Thaw (Robert Joy); kills architect Stanford White (Norman Mailer) and a lone black man's (Howard Rollins Jr.) quest for justice when his car is destroyed by a racist fire chief (Kenneth McMillan). This last subplot consumes most of the film's running time, to the overall detriment of the pacing. There are also several scenes involving an unnamed upper-middle-class family (headed by James Olson and Mary Steenburgen) who are evidently meant to be the audience's eyes and ears, but are frankly not terribly interesting. Back in 1981, Ragtime was given plenty of press coverage as the "comeback" picture for James Cagney, after twenty years in retirement. The problem is that Cagney's character (a police commissioner) isn't in the book, and his inclusion not only throws the story off balance, but necessitates the removal of several potentially interesting characters and events. Another detriment is the gratuitous (and illogical) nudity in the Evelyn Nesbit scenes, which earned the film its "R" rating. An ornate misfire, Ragtime is of interest today only for its remarkable cast of veterans and stars-to-be, including Pat O'Brien and Eloise O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Allen, Moses Gunn, Jeff Daniels and Fran Drescher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Czechoslovakian film adapts two stories by Giovanni Boccaccio from his 14th-century book The Decameron, -- one of the first European works of literature to appear in a vernacular tongue instead of Latin. The first story, called "The Arabian Horse," recounts how a young man gets permission from the mayor to spend 15 minutes alone with the mayor's wife. The second, full of secret assignations and mistaken identities, tells the somewhat farcical story of how a middle-aged woman reawakens her husband's sensuality. Despite the stories' racy subject matter, this film is not pornographic but is rather a well-produced historical drama. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

A young worker steals bits and pieces of building materials from work to construct a new home for himself and his girlfriend. This political and social comedy finds the worker being relegated to a social class, in spite of the utopian ideals for a classless system. He soon discovers his girlfriend and his boss are having an affair. A plot to murder his boss fails to materialize as planned, and the young worker finds himself with the girl in his newly constructed home instead. The man is troubled to find that, ironically, he has ended up like his boss, worried about the status and social position he has struggled to avoid. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide