Empties

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

A slightly jarring tone hampers the story of an old curmudgeon.

Czech director Jan Sverak has collaborated with his writer-actor father Zdenek before, in 1996's

Kolya

. The story of a Prague cellist saddled with the young son of the refugee he married for money, it was an enchanting, unsentimental comedy drama with a pungent political subtext and deserved the Oscar it won for best foreign film.

Father and son fell out over the characterisation of the main role in this film, and it's not hard to see the sticking point: Josef (played by Sverak snr) is more than just lovably cantankerous, like his character in Kolya. Self-centred and manipulative old men who worm their way into audience affections are a cinematic standby, but Josef evolves the other way, becoming more charmless.

In early scenes, his relationship with his wife Eliska (Kolarova) is a marvellous bristly partnership. A schoolmaster fed up with trying to interest bored and uncontrollable teenagers in Czech literature, he abruptly resigns. His wife is none too happy about having him under her feet, so he takes a job as a bicycle courier,for which he proves spectacularly unsuited. Nothing daunted, he moves to the busy bottle return department of the local supermarket and the small hatch through which the crates are passed becomes the proscenium arch through which he sees the lives of his customers and co-workers.

Josef's fondness for passing out advice on others' love lives is more than a little ironic, given the state of his own, particularly when he tries to matchmake his divorced daughter (Vilhelmova).

Plainly the two Sveraks are trying to make a point about the toll that economic upheaval - symbolised by an automated bottle-sorter - takes on human relationships but it's a bit heavy-handed.

More jarring still is a repeated sequence in which Josef fantasises about his old headmistress. But Sverak senior's performance is still a treat and this is a dry and wistful comedy with bite.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Zdenek Sverak, Daniela Kolarova, Tatiana Vilhelmova

Director:

Jan Sverak

Running time:

100 mins

Rating:

M (offensive language & sexual references) In Czech with English subtitles