Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master ListOscar · 1
Spoiler-free premise
Under a fascist regime, a Slovak carpenter is appointed to control the shop of an elderly Jewish widow.
Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free+
During the Slovak State's Aryanization program, poor carpenter Antonín Brtko is appointed controller of a button shop owned by elderly Jewish widow Rozália Lautmann. She barely understands the new arrangement, while local authorities expect Brtko to benefit from it.
Why it belongs
In The Shop on Main Street, Kadár and Klos let political evil enter through petty opportunity, with comedy by degrees collapsing around two ordinary people in one shop.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
Buttons, ledgers, keys, storefront windows, town processions, and misunderstandings make persecution bureaucratically ordinary—Jozef Kroner's anxious Brtko and Ida Kamińska's trusting Lautmann create tenderness shadowed by cowardice and irreversible pressure.
