With Slovakia made a puppet fascist state during World War II, a milquetoast carpenter (Jozef Kroner) is ordered to participate in the “Aryanisation” of his small hometown. However, he comes to care for the stubborn, confused Jewish widow (the formidable Ida Kamińska) whose button shop he is forced to run. Kadár and Klos’ serio-comic masterpiece about the perils of conformism won the 1966 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and features one of Liška’s loveliest, brassiest soundtracks. Later released by Mainstream Records in the United States, it remains one of the small number of his scores to have been released independently of a film.
4K DCP courtesy of the National Film Archive in Prague.