Ves v pohraničí

The commercial success of Border Village is not surprising, because three years later Václav Řezáč took advantage of the popularity of the "eastern border film genre" and created a reliable socio-realistic best-seller with his film Deployment. In contrast to the action-based and ideologically-exacerbated film by Řezáč, where Czech settlers are waging a trench war with the Germans, Border Village is an all too peaceful and dormant affair with a weak villain. The film is dominated by the message of collectivity (a kind of primitively common socialist society), a slight critique of bureaucrats and a mellow ideological aspect, so typical of works of art created before or just after February. Yet the introduction of the film is more than promising. The arrival to the abandoned and Nazi-adorned North has a special atmosphere of fear and the unknown, but that fades over time and we are left with poorly constructed meetings and field work. The acting component of Krejčík's film works reliably, and in fact it should, given that the list is full of current and future acting stars. Worth mentioning is Karel Effa, whose wooden expressive acting kills it... Unfortunately, Border Village does not have the tension of the border areas which later served socio-realist art as a space for events and detective escapades. Border Village is just an average film with a weak trace of socialist ideology, and unfortunately also a weak trace of drama. (15.12.2006)

The infamous historical stage of the "gold-digging" of our Czech dovish characters in the borderlands is of course portrayed somewhat rosy, and it is a bit soaked in a slowly growing ideologisation, but what is most interesting is that 42-year-old Bohuš Záhorský plays a 70-year-old hunched old man and, wonder of wonders, he actually looks seventy. And it was a hit. This inconspicuous and rarely shown film today was seen by 2.5 million people in its time. (13.08.2006)

Border Village is a very interesting movie, traditionally representative of its era. Any German person was the scum of the Earth and so the Czech people objectively banished their entire nation off the borders and then started moving in there themselves, simply taking the farm that they liked the most. Of course, that wasn’t the best nor the most appropriate solution that we could have done. Because brave Czechs were unafraid and so they decided to move into the uncertain area with everything that they had left from their home town. Sure, one must take the era’s propaganda into account. There probably wasn’t any other way back then. But on the other hand, the movieis very well-done. It shows the era’s mood, people’s opinions and the filmmaking craft is truly solid.The scariest of all is probably the ending where one realizes that people are always the same, no matter the era. The first family settling in the village takes over the responsibility and the head of the family becomes the mayor. The innkeeper doesn’t agree with that and once he gets the slightest chance to harm them, he immediately takes that chance and trash-talks the hell out of them. No matter the fact that the elected mayor is a person with sensible thinking who does the very best he can for democracy. But as soon as the innkeeper finds some dirt on him, everybody suddenly turns their back on him and if it weren’t for the final scene, the only rationally-thinking person would become an outcast whilst the murderer would become a hero. That radiates ignorance, bribery and all sorts of negative traits that keep holding on in our country and don’t ever seem to go away. (18.06.2013)