Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

jadavix "The Elementary School", chosen by Czech audiences as their greatest film, is proof that countries can rarely be trusted when it comes to deciding such things. One suspects it is beloved in its own country not because it is a particularly great movie, but because it depicts a country that no longer exists (Czechoslovakia) - and perhaps never existed in the first place.The main character, Eda, is a mischievous tyke whose terribly behaved class sends his teacher crazy. She is replaced by a war hero who introduces corporal punishment, and with it, respect and admiration.Eda should be carrying the movie, but never emerges as a character in his own right. Isn't the movie supposed to be seen through his eyes? The camera supersedes him.The cast of characters is the typical group of kooky eccentrics, though again, few make much of an impression.The movie needed to get down to Eda's level. Instead it hovers around him, showing everything bathed in suspicious gold, not letting us get close enough to doubt the idea that life wasn't better back then.

Mattias A delightful little movie that makes you feel good inside after watching it. I saw it the first time at a movie festival in Pisek in what was then Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1991 and when I see it now it's like going back there again.Advertised as a movie for children in the newspapers, I beg to differ. Children will enjoy it but it is also suitable for a mature audience.Kind of similar to Lasse Hallström's My Life as a Dog.

puck10 THIS is the top of Czech cinematography. Excellent movie, directed by Jan Sverak with wonderful Jan Triska. The only one sentence you can say after watching it is: IT WAS AWESOME.

Jan-94 Igor Hnizdo (Jan Triska) arrives as a new tough teacher to work in the elementary school in a small Czechoslovakian town just after the WWII. The movie reflects many of the dark aspects of the Czechoslovakian history. They're being told with a lot of sense for humour but in fact are not so funny because of the historical facts. Scholars are growing within the time background of the 1945 (end of the war) and 1948 (Communistic overthrown) which makes otherwise sweet and funny movie somehow dark from perspective that you know how bad future lies in front of them.