Review of Up and Down

This was probably the best film shown at the Vancouver International Film Festival, from a filmmaker I greatly admire. A complex, utterly compelling, completely accurate snapshot of contemporary Czech society, it has several story lines that converge at different points. The social fabric of a country dealing with rapid and enormous political, social,and economic change is stretched to tearing point as borne out by a sleazy pair of people smugglers and the various low-life petty criminals with whom they work; a university professor, his embittered wife and estranged adult son, and his long-term decades-younger mistress, who was the son's girlfriend at one time; a not-too-bright security guard—-a man who channels all his pent-up rage and frustration into brawls at soccer matches—-and his wife who has become mentally unhinged by her craving for a baby. Hrebejk has the stories intersect in an unforced manner, and examines the scourges of a society in the throes of rampant change: unemployment, corruption, crime, racism, unwanted immigrants, old-timers unwilling to come to terms with the new order, and the increasing divide between the rich and the poor. His bemused eye watches unflinchingly when some of his educated characters spew racist bile, or when the inarticulate white supremacist security guard is gentleness personified while caring for the brown baby that his barren wife buys with their life savings. Displaying his usual fine understanding of human nature, he demonstrates that no person is all good or all evil; even his most despicable characters perform uncharacteristic kind acts. With some laugh-out-loud scenes of sophisticated black humor on offer, this is social satire of the highest order.