I Served the King of England is very ambitious. It condenses an epic novel into two hours and squeezes in more styles than a catwalk. There are nods to the wit of Charlie Chaplin. The visual eulogies of Peter Greenaway. Penitentiaries, bars, brothels, woods, invading armies. All are collected in a dizzying montage as Jan Díte reviews the highs and lows of his life and loves in flashback.He has just been released from Prague Correctional Facility, having served almost 15 years. He is also in rather humble circumstances. This seems to contrast with his lifelong and apparently successful ambition to become a millionaire. The first half of the film has a theatrical feel of unreality – much like a musical. Serving lad Díte manages to score with a local beauty at the nearby bordello. He then get various jobs that involve him working with sophisticated women of pleasure, or in top hotels, or sometimes both together. His short stature enables him to play many tricks, like surreptitiously throwing a handful of coins on the ground for the pleasure of watching rich men get down on their hands and knees with their bums in the air. One of his favourite penchants with the ladies, on the other hand, is to ornament their naked and prostrate forms with anything from flowers, to fruit, to funds from his growing pocket book. One particularly striking moment is when he decorates a naked brothel girl (who looks worryingly like Kylie Minogue) in large margarita daisies. The scene is as arresting as the nude-and- rose-petals shot in American Beauty, or the female-served-for-dinner in The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover.Menzel's taste for a decadent protagonist is in no way sullied by shame. His whores are creatures of beauty: "The scent of raspberry trailed behind her. She stepped out in that silk dress, full of peonies, and bees hovered around her like a Turkish honey store." ('Bees' you will note, not 'flies'.) The description follows an incident where the lady in question pours raspberry grenadine over herself - to stop Díte from getting into trouble.

Jan Dite, a resourceful waiter at a Prague restaurant, likes to play tricks on the wealthy patrons of the establishment where he starts his career by throwing coins on the floor. It never fails, even the richest men cannot pass the occasion of getting down to pick up a coin, something that fills Dite's soul with contentment. Jan Dite also starts his own sentimental education at the hand of a beautiful blond who sends the older gentlemen in the restaurant to a state of bliss. But the only one that really gets to her heart, and her bed is Jan.The picaresque ascent and downfall of Jan Dite is told in flashbacks by the older Dite, who at the beginning of the story is released from jail for something that is not revealed until almost the end. Jan goes from Prague into a country hotel where the privileged rich love to go to be secluded with attractive young women. In a delicious sequence Jan Dite comes upon what really goes on in a private room upstairs where a lovely young lady rotates on a 'lazy Susan' kind of device while the men around the table have great views of her. Even this woman seem to prefer Jan to most of the old goats that can really pay for her.The next adventure involving young Dite involves his stay at one of the most beautiful restaurants in all of Prage, the great Paris Hotel, where the art of food is the most refined in the city. There Jan makes the acquaintance of the head waiter, Skrivanek, a suave and debonair man who can speak several languages and who takes a liking for the young Dite. His waiters love to perform a sort of balletic dance around the restaurant where they balance the many platters on their tray. One waiter in particular, resents Jan Dite, who gets his revenge when he makes his rival trip causing him to go into a melt down of huge proportions. One of Jan's best achievements was his role during the dinner the Emperor of Ethiopia offers at the hotel. Being a short man, the monarch wants to offer a medal to one of the staff, but not being tall, he bestows the sash with the jewel to Dite, who treasures it forever. His big love comes in the way of Liza, a German woman who arrives in the country after part of it is taken over by Germany. The Nazis are seen arriving all over town. Some Czech youths begin beating Germans, but Jan's intervention gains her admiration that will turn into love. The only problem is the question of whether Jan Dite's blood is fit to blend with Liza's who is pure Aryan. It is not too long before the invading Germans are all over the place. Jan Dite's sees his older friend and mentor being sent away to a death camp, but he is helpless to do much. The old man had suggested to put his money into stamps because he feels the money will be useless. Jan, not heeding the advice ends up with nothing, until Liza returns from the war loaded with stamps, which are sold in order for Dite to buy the old Paris hotel, but alas, his happiness is short lived because the Communists take over. The hotel goes to the state and they send Jan Dite to prison for having paid 15 million for the establishment that merits him fifteen years away.This wonderful film by Jiri Menzel, a director much admired for his earlier projects, is a satire about life before WWII and its aftermath. The most interesting aspect of the story involves the young Jan because of the great possibilities Mr. Menzel saw in the ascent of the entrepreneurial Dite, whereas the latter part with the older Jan only serves to recall parts of his interesting life. The director had actually worked with novelist Bohumil Hrabal, but his take on the book shows a director at the top of his craft as a creator. The irony of the story is that after the country is invaded by the Germans, the people become slaves by the Communist regime that will last more than forty years by the hardliners that took over.The best thing in this film is the wonderful Bulgarian actor Ivan Barnev, who steals the picture. He is one of the most remarkable actors working in Eastern Europe today. It is a joy to watch this man work. He is never obnoxious. In addition, he possesses one of the most expressive faces that works great in the film. Oldrich Kaiser, is seen as the older Dite. He too, bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Barnev, but alas, his role is not as important in the context of the film. Julia Jentsch, a German actress, plays the role of Liza, who becomes Dite's love. Martin Huba, another distinguished actor is marvelous as the head waiter Skrivanek. The supporting cast includes Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, in a cameo.The film is a triumph for Jiri Menzel, who was blessed with the magic performance of Ivan Barnev in an unforgettable film that will live forever.

Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále (2006), written and directed by Jirí Menzel, is a Czech film shown in the U.S. with the title, "I Served the King of England." Menzel directed "Closely Watched Trains," one of the great movies of the 1960's.Using flash forwards and flash backs, we follow the life of Jan Díte, played as a young man by Ivan Barnev, and as an older man by Oldrich Kaiser. Díte is obsessed with becoming a millionaire, and the younger Díte manages to accomplish this goal by his total unconcern for the plight of his country and his fellow Czechs. When the Germans invade Sudetenland, and then the rest of Czechoslovakia, Díte takes it all in stride, calmly embracing--figuratively--the Nazi invaders and--literally--a lovely young Nazi woman. I think we are supposed to perceive him as naive and innocent, but my interpretation is that he is willfully ignorant and basically uncaring. My mother always said, "There are none so blind as those who will not see." That quote perfectly fits Díte's character.The film has some comic moments, and the views of Prague are lovely. The movie is worth watching if the opportunity arises, but not worth strenuously seeking out. We saw it at the Rochester High Falls International Film Festival. It will work well on DVD.

Like the butler played by Anthony Hopkins in the 1994 film "The Remains of the Day", the waiter at the centre of "I Served the King of England" (Jiri Menzel, Czech Republic, 2006) is not interested in politics. Major historical events surround him, yet these completely escape his attention. His ambition is simply to become a millionaire, like the fat cats he serves at table. In 1930s Prague, Hitler, in Berlin, is making a radio announcement about his aim to "liberate" the Sudetenland. Bored, Jan Dite, the waiter, simply turns the dial to a dance music station.He manages to float through the Nazi invasion, first of the Sudetenland, then of Czechoslovakia. By a combination of hook and crook, he achieves his ambition of owning his own hotel through the sale of valuable stamps, stolen from a vanished Jewish family. This does not give him a moment's pause but later, when he sees a trainload of Jews in cattle-cars moving off to Auschwitz, he has a rush of compassion and chases after the train in an attempt to hand the deportees a sandwich. After the war, as a self-confessed millionaire, he is sent to prison when his hotel is nationalised. He emerges fifteen years later, older, but not much wiser. He is Schweik, but without the latter's sly intelligence.This sketchy summary cannot do justice to a film which has been described as a near-flawless masterpiece, in which "Prague has never looked better". It is permeated with the ironic wit which marked Menzel's earlier films, such as the Academy Award winning Closely Watched Trains (1966). Dite befriends the German girl Liza, described by one reviewer as "the sweetest little Nazi in the history of the cinema". They are in bed, making love in the missionary position. Liza keeps pushing his head aside so that she can gaze at the big picture of Adolf Hitler on the opposite wall. Such was love in the Third Reich. The scene in which Dite is undergoing a racial fitness test which involves giving a sperm sample is intercut with young Czech men being unloaded from a lorry at an execution ground. Of this, Dite is blissfully unaware.The Remains of the Day was based on a serious and perceptive novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The genesis of I Served the King of England, by contrast, was a comic novel by Bohumil Hrabal, a book I cannot wait to get my hands on. Any offers?