Empties

OCCASIONALLY UPLIFTING: The Czech film Empties doesn't glamorise Prague or its people.

Hanging on in quiet desperation may be the English way, but in the Czech Republic they're a little more pro-active.

I loved the central premise of Empties, which looks at a few months in the life of Josef (Zdenek Sverak), a 65-year-old teacher who has had it up to here with the classroom.

However one feels about corporal punishment it was hard not to cheer when he squeezed a saturated sponge over the head of your classic big-mouthed teenaged upstart.

Empties is about living, however hard it may be.

You had to admire Josef's gall, when he exchanges the classroom for a courier's bike. Prague's slushy streets and an impatient car driver soon put an end to that.

Zdenek Sverak's son, Jan, directs and his hand is a deft one. Empties is about not being ready for old age and about missed opportunity. It is also about family and about love. Josef's marriage is tired and he fills his day with fantasy and the odd flirtation. He is a lascivious old grump. He doesn't want to be part of a walking group of old men. He wants to be in the workforce and talking to people. Giving him a job in the recycling room of a supermarket is a terrific idea and an ageing man working with recycled bottles becomes a poignant recurring motif.

There is nothing glamorous about this film, no air-brushing of people or place. Even Prague looks tired, filmed honestly by a cinematographer who isn't trying to sell it to tourists.

Change isn't always for the best - the old communist regime may have gone, but so has the library, replaced by a tooth-whitening business.

This movie isn't perfect - Josef's frustration is perhaps too perfectly realised and the audience is made to share it, which is not necessarily a comfortable thing. But it is enhanced by terrific characterisation, with every character being fully realised. The director excels himself at visual metaphor and it has the most wonderful last 10 minutes that you could hope to see.

Worth the price of admission.

EMPTIES
(M)
(84min)
* * *
Directed by Jan Sverak, written by Zdenek Sverak, starring Zdenek Sverak and Daniela Kolarova.

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