I Served the King of England

Introduction

Jan Díte as just been released from prison before the end of his 15 year term but, as he wryly observes, he only served 14 year and 9 months. It is this sort of absurdist humour that infuses I Served the King of England to its core and, by most accounts, the work of Czech filmmaker Jirí Menzel.

Having moved to the border where Díte has been told to gravel an abandoned country road where the only company is another elderly man and an attractive younger woman who looks on Díte with a mix of amusement and curiosity. In flashback we see Díte as a waiter in Prague. A mischievous and ambitious man, he gets as much pleasure from watching the head waiter glide around the room depositing plates and marvelling at how the maître d' correctly guesses what each guest will order as he does from randomly dropping loose change on the floor and watching even the richest diner get on their hands and knees to scrabble for coins. Just how does the maître d' know what people will order? He served the King of England.

When the head waiter drops a plate he does the honourable thing: throwing the rest of them to the ground before walking out the restaurant, Díte becomes the new head waiter and is soon getting awards from the Emperor of Egypt before moving to another, bigger, fancier restaurant where he charms an attractive Nazi as war approaches and becomes a reality.

Video

A very nice transfer of a very well filmed movie: Jirí Menzel has a great eye for the comic and, in the lead, Ivan Barnev is almost Keaton-esque, doing as much with a slight glance from the corner of his eye as he drops some coins as with a whole speech. The settings and costumes (or lack of) are terrific and the picture is very well lit and photographed.

Audio

The Dolby Digital stereo Czech soundtrack is clear and with some lovely scored music. The burnt-in subtitles are also clear and largely free of grammatical and spelling errors.

Conclusion

I Served the King of England is a charming and whimsical film and I watched most of it with a grin on my face. The humour is ever present, even in the scenes where Díte comes to the rescue of the Nazi girl on whom he has his eye and at a house where 'suitable' woman have been provided for high ranking Nazis.

At the end when Díte has fulfilled his ambition of becoming a millionaire only to naïvely assume that he'll be untouched by the communist takeover - he is unable to take in the fact that things aren't his and that they belong to 'the people'.

Told in flashback from the elderly Díte, now wiser from his experiences, this is a lovely film with great performances throughout. It's no masterpiece but is well worth a watch and thoroughly enjoyable although it's a shame that all the disc has to offer is scene selection.