Rating: 
Summary: Gripping Story of the Holocaust
Review: "Divided We Fall" is a great Czech Republic film from 2000, starring Bolek Polivka, Anna Siskova, and Csongor Kassai. It earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. It desplicts a couple, Josef and Maria, from Czechoslavakia (now Czech Republic and Slavakia) who's devastated that they are unable to bear children. Josef begins losing all hope in life. Little do they know that their lives will become affected by the Holocaust. Suddenly, David, one of his ex-employee's family members and a lone survivor of a Polish massacre, enters their apartment in search of help. They risk their lives to hide him from the Nazis. Through these intense chain of events, the hard-hitting impact is always present. Such powerful theme keeps audiences watching closely. This powerful film desplicts the Holocaust's hardships wonderfully, brutal and beyond heartbreaking. The emotion aspect builds as lives change forever, namely Josef's renewed life outlook. The unique camera effects in certain scenes dig deeper into the characers' surroundings. Such film quality gives the brilliant plot its viewing enjoyment up to the surprising conclusion. The performers add their own sense of emotional value to this, namely Polivka, Siskova, and Kassai. Kassai's captivating performance as David alone offers the unforgettable experience through his character's life threatening struggles. "Divided We Fall" is yet another great Holocaust-based film that will continue pleasing its audiences. This will not be forgotten by any of them.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping Story of the Holocaust
Review: "Divided We Fall" is a great Czech Republic film from 2000, starring Bolek Polivka, Anna Siskova, and Csongor Kassai. It earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. It desplicts a couple, Josef and Maria, from Czechoslavakia (now Czech Republic and Slavakia) who's devastated that they are unable to bear children. Josef begins losing all hope in life. Little do they know that their lives will become affected by the Holocaust. Suddenly, David, one of his ex-employee's family members and a lone survivor of a Polish massacre, enters their apartment in search of help. They risk their lives to hide him from the Nazis. Through these intense chain of events, the hard-hitting impact is always present. Such powerful theme keeps audiences watching closely. This powerful film desplicts the Holocaust's hardships wonderfully, brutal and beyond heartbreaking. The emotion aspect builds as lives change forever, namely Josef's renewed life outlook. The unique camera effects in certain scenes dig deeper into the characers' surroundings. Such film quality gives the brilliant plot its viewing enjoyment up to the surprising conclusion. The performers add their own sense of emotional value to this, namely Polivka, Siskova, and Kassai. Kassai's captivating performance as David alone offers the unforgettable experience through his character's life threatening struggles. "Divided We Fall" is yet another great Holocaust-based film that will continue pleasing its audiences. This will not be forgotten by any of them.
Rating:
Summary: An incredibly moving film...
Review: A movie about the horrors of the Nazi regime seen not only from the Jewish perspective, but also from the perspective of non-Jews in conquered Tschechoslovakei. Each character has their own personality, their own doubts and fears. In the end there is an unbreakable circle of salvation that gives the movie a poignant and unforgettable ending. A movie that's serious and humourous while at the same time cinematographically astounding.
Rating:
Summary: a test
Review: Against all odds, and against our own fears, sometimes we find ourselves doing things we would not imagine doing. Sometimes we might even find that we do these things, which are ethically correct, against our wills. The main characters in Divided We Fall, Josef and Maria, are a married couple who end up harboring a Jewish acquaintance in their cellar for three years. They do not necessarily do this at first because they feel compelled by morality to do so, but more from guilt or because they don't really see another alternative. The couple sought calm and quiet and to stay out of the path of the onslaught of war and its politics, but in the end found themselves right in the mix. Indeed, to conceal their hidden "guest", they had to play the role of Nazi collaborator, which of course alienated all their neighbors and nearly cost them once the Nazis were driven out. Naturally all the twists and turns of the couple taking David (the Jewish "guest") in play out with some humor and some drama and even some moral and ethical questions... this is handled so subtly and deftly.
Rating:
Summary: An incredibly moving film...
Review: As an Oscar nominee for Foreign Films, this movie has been brushed aside by many critics. It is relatively unknown in comparison to the fanfare that tends to accompany an Oscar nominee these days. The fact that the movie came out one year after Life is Beautiful didn't help either. In a lot of people's mind, it must have been seen as an imitator, a movie riding on the wave of the much beloved La Vita e Bella. Divided We Fall is a very dark comedy telling a story about trust, betrayal and redemption. It does not try to mask the ugliness of human nature during a war. It draws laughs closer to uncomfortable grins, watching the characters get into very compromising situations. Every character is flawed in some ways, and although good triumphs in the end, we have to question if it is inherent in everyone. Part of the social commentary that might be easily overlooked is the criticism towards the indifferent attitude of the Czech people towards separating the morally right from wrong. This has been frequently documented in books like Tina Rosenberg's "The Haunted Land". Amid Josef and Maria's kind souls, lie a backdrop of ignorance and indifference. People seem too easy too bend, too willing to trade in righteousness for comfort. Even Josef and Maria bicker, wavering in their belief that what they do is right. Divided a Fall is film that truly deserves a viewing. It might not be the most touching or beautiful film you will ever see. It has its flaws, like the slow-motions that simply refuses to go away. In it, perhaps you will find the old saying that art mimics life. And the life you will find here is far from perfect. Instead you will find one full of compromises and makes you wonder if life is indeed so beautiful after all.
Rating: 
Summary: An underrated, Oscar-nominated black comedy
Review: As an Oscar nominee for Foreign Films, this movie has been brushed aside by many critics. It is relatively unknown in comparison to the fanfare that tends to accompany an Oscar nominee these days. The fact that the movie came out one year after Life is Beautiful didn't help either. In a lot of people's mind, it must have been seen as an imitator, a movie riding on the wave of the much beloved La Vita e Bella. Divided We Fall is a very dark comedy telling a story about trust, betrayal and redemption. It does not try to mask the ugliness of human nature during a war. It draws laughs closer to uncomfortable grins, watching the characters get into very compromising situations. Every character is flawed in some ways, and although good triumphs in the end, we have to question if it is inherent in everyone. Part of the social commentary that might be easily overlooked is the criticism towards the indifferent attitude of the Czech people towards separating the morally right from wrong. This has been frequently documented in books like Tina Rosenberg's "The Haunted Land". Amid Josef and Maria's kind souls, lie a backdrop of ignorance and indifference. People seem too easy too bend, too willing to trade in righteousness for comfort. Even Josef and Maria bicker, wavering in their belief that what they do is right. Divided a Fall is film that truly deserves a viewing. It might not be the most touching or beautiful film you will ever see. It has its flaws, like the slow-motions that simply refuses to go away. In it, perhaps you will find the old saying that art mimics life. And the life you will find here is far from perfect. Instead you will find one full of compromises and makes you wonder if life is indeed so beautiful after all.
Rating:
Summary: we must help each other-divided we fall
Review: definitly recomend this movie to those, who likes dramas.
Rating: 
Summary: Charm is not enough
Review: Depending upon your point of view, Divided We Fall is either charming or maddeningly slow as it develops at a leisurely pace. The movie is contradictory in a number of ways. For instance, the first four scenes take place at two year intervals (which altogether take 5 minutes of screen time at most), and despite the time span covered and the drama involved (Jews being run out of town, the Nazis taking over, an escaped Jew) the story unfolds rather slowly. This is the story of Josef and Maria, an ordinary Czech couple swept up in the events of World War II. Josef has planned to malinger his way through World War II, sleeping on his day bed. His friend Horst, an enthusiastic and obnoxious Nazi will have none of it. Horst has prospered under the Nazis and sharing his good fortune withhis friend is a way to control/manipulate him - and to further Horst's desire to bed Maria. In the end, the movie would have you believe that all the characters are compromised and flawed and that there is some good and some bad in all of us. (Actually this overstates the case a bit. The movie waffles a bit in the case of Maria and is not quite sure whether she is a Madonna figure or not. [Maria = Mary; Get it?]) But here the movie trips up. The major crisis of the movie is precipitated by Horst when he tries to place a fallen Nazi in Josef and Maria's apartment. The problem is that Horst is either aware of David, the Jew that Josef and Maria are trying to hide, in which case this is a horribly manipulative way for Horst to try to destroy them or he is not aware of the Jew, in which case Horst can claim no credit for the fact that David survives to the end of the war. In the end the attempt to put all the characters on the same moral plane comes off as pat and movie like. This movie has problem that I have never encountered before: some of the subtitles were flashed quicker than I could read them. For those who are inclined to steer around movies with subtitles in the first place, I suspect such a flaw would be sure to damn the movie from the get go. The movie ends with a surreal scene that one might find in a Fellini movie. For a movie that had for the most part developed in a realistic manner, this final and last scene was absolutely false. My family reacted to the scene by screaming and yelling at the screen, "What was _that about?"
Rating:
Summary: We must help each other
Review: I don't think that "Divided we fall" was such a good choice of translation of this movie's name. I personally come from Slovakia, the neighboring country to the Czech Republic, and we understand each other languages - and as my title says, the true meaning is "We must help each other". And that's what is the movie about - about people, their will to help each other, the strenght and weakness of the human character. The DVD is already out in Europe and what I can say is that the movie hasn't lost any of it's charm with the transfer to the DVD. However, as for Europe usual, the DVD had just little to no extras, because of all the different languages they have to pack on the DVD. We will see, if the US-version is better. Of course, you will be able to check it, just look a little bit higher on your screen, there you'll find it ... As I said, we must help each other. Didn't I help you now?
Rating:
Summary: We must help each other
Review: I don't think that "Divided we fall" was such a good choice of translation of this movie's name. I personally come from Slovakia, the neighboring country to the Czech Republic, and we understand each other languages - and as my title says, the true meaning is "We must help each other". And that's what is the movie about - about people, their will to help each other, the strenght and weakness of the human character. The DVD is already out in Europe and what I can say is that the movie hasn't lost any of it's charm with the transfer to the DVD. However, as for Europe usual, the DVD had just little to no extras, because of all the different languages they have to pack on the DVD. We will see, if the US-version is better. Of course, you will be able to check it, just look a little bit higher on your screen, there you'll find it ... As I said, we must help each other. Didn't I help you now?
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