"Musíme si pomáhat" or "Divided We Fall" is a Czech 2-hour film from 2000. Because of its Oscar nomination it is the most known work by writer and director Jan Hrebejk and also one of the most known Czech films from the last two decades. Most of the language is Czech, but there are also German parts in here. From the cast, I will only mention lead actor Bolek Polívka, because he was pretty tremendous, but the supporting players were all good too and deserving of the awards attention they received. This is a film about the prosecution of Jews by the Nazis between the years 1933 and 1945, this time in the Czech Republic. A family has to witness how a Jewish family gets arrested and taken out of her home. Some time later, we find out that only one of them had survived and asks the family that watched back then for help. So, despite risking their own lives, they agree to take him in and hide him from the Nazi officers. A major problem here is that the family has a friend and neighbor who is very loyal to the Nazi party and quickly suspects that something's fishy there with the strange recent behavior from the family. This is one of the major conflicts of this film.I must say this movie was quite a challenge. There are many films out there about the prosecution of Jews, about World War II and about Nazi Germany, so it is always difficult to make something new and refreshing about the subject, but Hrebejk certainly succeeded here. The best about this movie is that it is a fairly simple story and there are not too many characters involved really, actually just 4 for the most part. So it had great focus and it is also very challenging to make a film on this subject and still manage to make people laugh or at least smile on some occasions. There were definitely some entertaining moments in here from a fun perspective and the most important thing is that they felt authentic, not rushed in, but they just fit in with the story. And last but not least, the movie also managed to be emotional and touching on many occasions, also fairly sad sometimes (such as the scene where they had to make a baby to avoid danger), which adds another dimension to it. Character development is okay as well. Most of the people stay exactly the character who they are early on, but there is one major exception and actually those who don't change aren't bad either as we find out more and more about them as the film continues. I genuinely enjoyed the watch here. This is one of my favorite films about the difficult years between 1933 and 1945. I highly recommend the watch to everybody with an interest in the subject. Glad to see it got the Oscar nomination. It would have made a great winner too.

Certain significant subjects have been covered in cinema so often, and with brilliant results that one wonders if still another is needed. The Holocaust and the Nazi menace have certainly inspired numerous fine films, with Schindler's List and The Pianist and The Tin Drum and scores of others covering the subject exhaustively. Why then another? Perhaps we can never be reminded too often to look at humanity's recent history, and perhaps because the subject of civilized man treating his equals in such subhuman ways can , in careful hands, perhaps impart still another needed reminder. And sometimes a repeated story has subtleties not covered heretofore. Divided We Fall is a story similar to that of Anne Frank's, and the idea of community is examined with quirky humor under great stress, and the concept of friendship is questioned in a way that may make you examine your own ideas.This is a thoughtful film with many surprises in store, and an ending that does not disappoint; because you probably will not will not recognize most of the performers, there is a feeling of truth in character that pervades this often-tense, sometimes oddly funny study of a society assaulted.

It's testimony to something or other that World War II still provides fodder for quality films almost 60 years after. This is one of the best and writer-director Jan Hrebejk sets the scene in an economical montage that begins in the late thirties and establishes 1) a small company town in Czeckoslovakia 2) the company in question, Wiener 3)Josef Cizkova, a foreman in the company 4) Horst Prohaska, an ordinary employee and butt of endless jokes by virtue of his fluent German and German sympathies. With the war in full swing the Wiener factory and house are seized by the enemy. Horst is now big man on campus via his open collaboration and he chooses to bestow his largesse on Josef and Josef's wife, Maria, not least as a way of getting into Maria's pants. Complications set in with the arrival of David Wiener, who has escaped from a concentration camp and returned to his home. Josef and Maria reluctantly hide him in their home, a precarious business given that Horst is wont to drop in at any and every odd moment. The film teeters between Black and ordinary comedy laced with tragedy in the best Billy Wilder tradition and leads up to a stunning climax. 9/10

A film that illustrates well how some people will rebel against the enemy and risk their lives to help a neighbor, while others betray or imperil those they've known for a lifetime either to advance socio-economically or just to live in relative peace.Josef is a good man, but even he has anxiety and regrets about doing the right thing. This movie is about him and his wife, and how the man they decide to hide in their home eventually changes their lives beyond what they would have imagined at the time they decided to risk their lives and help him.I liked this movie.