I Served the King of England
- Original title
- Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále (I Served the King of England)
- Year
- 2006
- Running time
- 118 min.
- Country
- Czech Republic
- Director
- Screenwriter
- Jiří Menzel. Novel: Bohumil Hrabal
- Cast
-
- Ivan Barnev
- Oldrich Kaiser
- Julia Jentsch
- Martin Huba
- Marián Labuda
- Milan Lasica
- Josef Abrhám
- Jirí Lábus
- Jaromír Dulava
- See all credits
- Music
- Cinematography
- Producer
- Co-production Czech Republic-Slovakia;
- Genre
- Comedy. Drama | Black Comedy
- Synopsis
- Jan Dítì (Ivan Barnev) is short in height, but high in ambition. To put it bluntly, the young provincial waiter wants to become a millionaire. And he knows just how to do it: by hearing everything, seeing everything, and creating opportunities at every turn. Armed with this knowledge and an irrepressible wish to please, he soon leaves his first place of employment, a pub, for a luxury brothel and, finally moving onto an elegant Art Nouveau Prague restaurant. But by the late 1930s, things are changing: Hitler has taken the Sudetenland region and is breaking apart Czechoslovakia. Jan falls in love with Líza (Julia Jentsch), a Sudeten German proud of her Aryan blood. They marry, and soon after Líza is sent to serve on the Polish front, while Jan remains behind to serve as a nurse in a Nazi SS Research Hospital, but when she returns, she has a fortune in rare stamps that Jews had ‘left behind’ … After Líza’s less than heroic death, Jan sells the stamps and becomes … a millionaire. But he only has three years to enjoy his fortune: the new Communist regime puts him behind bars for 15 years, one for each of his millions… Upon his release from jail, Jan is sent to live in a decrepit border town. Here Jan reflects on the events that have shaped his life – and to reflect on what might have happened if he had played a different role in these events.
- Rankings Position
- Awards
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2007: Berlin Film Festival: International Critic Award FIPRESCI2007: European Film Awards: Nominated for Audience Award2009: Gopo Awards (National Romanian film awards): Best European Film.
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