Ján Kadár's and Elmar Klos's "Obchod na korze" ("The Shop on Main Street" in English) is a look at the human condition in times of repression. Jozef Kroner plays Tono Brtko, an unaccomplished carpenter in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. The puppet government appoints him owner of a button shop operated by Jewish widow Rozália Lautmannová* (Ida Kaminska). However, she is unaware of what is going on outside her shop and simply assumes that Tono wants a job. But as the plot progresses, it becomes clear that he can't hide current events from her much longer.The movie won Best Foreign Language Film for 1965, and with good reason. It starts out looking a bit silly, but grows more and more serious as it continues, culminating in a very tense sequence towards the end. One might call it a precursor to "Life Is Beautiful", but it's very much a serious movie. A really effective scene is when a paramilitary group marches down the street singing a song that says something to the effect of "Slovakia for the Slovaks" and arrive at a structure (whose construction is shown throughout the movie) that most likely proclaims something about freedom and life. It just shows what these people are all about.This is definitely one that I recommend. I've read some about the Czech New Wave, and I assume that "The Shop on Main Street" was part of that. Truly one that you should see. Also starring Hana Slivková, Martin Hollý Sr, and František Zvarík.*The subtitles call her Mrs. Lautmann. Lautmannová is Slovakization to create a feminine form of the surname.

I have little more to add to the praise in all the other comments here, except perhaps to suggest that some of them go too far. It's an excellent film, well worth seeing, very moving and very believable, all the more effective for the way it moves so quietly, step-by-step from common, everyday life to something more horrible. A scene that will stay with me is when all the town's Jews are gathered with their bags and suitcases in the town square, then are led off in a grim procession and disappear around a corner. No shooting, no beating, but it gives one the shivers.I did find the ending disappointing. I don't think a man like that would commit suicide. Yes, he would feel terrible about causing the death of the old lady, and he would be afraid of being beaten and killed for having harbored a Jew. But he is not a brave man--far from it. I don't think he has the firmness of will to hang himself. I think he'd run away and hide. After being found, he'd place his hopes in begging for forgiveness from his Fascist brother-in-law before taking his fate into his own hands. So the suicide struck me as conventional, too easy, just a convenient way to round off the plot.

Obchod na korze is a story of a simple man in a complex times. The time I am talking about is the WW II period when Hitler was exterminating Jews from Europe. This movie although not dealing much with the scenes from Jews struggle depicts a powerful story which shows us how some European civilians were with Hitler and how they helped him in his mission. Again this movie doesn't show all this as a main plot but indirectly like how the villagers submissively throws Jews out, takes their stores, and how they talk. This all gives us a little peak at the psyche of the people at that time but the movie doesn't overbear itself with such psychic and doesn't turn into a melodramatic, tissue grabber one, but depicts one man who is simple, not with any complications and who is not Jew takes into a Jewish old woman's store but with the help of others keep the old lady working in the store by not letting other anti-Jew know about the situation. I won't reveal much here but the movie is brilliant, and the actors are really good, especially the main male lead and the old woman in the store. This is not entertainer as the time it deals with is by no means entertaining but only horrifying and yet director, writers did their best in making this movie with a light humorous nature of the characters especially in their depiction of the Tono and Lautman. So you will laugh at times, feel bad at times, think about that period most of the time and then eventually you might cry at the end. This movie is that good. Watch it for your senses.

This is a well-acted but somewhat overrated serio-comic human drama with a WWII backdrop; typical of Eastern European cinema at the time, the film emerges as rather slight (the grim aspects of its plot are only really felt during the last half-hour or so, making it unnecessarily long at a little over 2 hours) and is full of simple, earthy and clearly downtrodden characters - the Fascist regime standing in for the contemporary Communist oppression - who still burst into song at the drop of a hat! Even if the two main characters aren't exactly endearing (especially the rather insufferable and possibly dim-witted old Jewish lady), the ironic tragic ending packs an undeniable punch.Even though the film was taken for a poster-bearer for the nascent Czech New Wave - indeed, it went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film - it is intrinsically too old-fashioned to easily fit the bill. This was the directing team's seventh (and penultimate) collaboration, after which Kadar left for the United States to continue making films there - most notably THE ANGEL LEVINE (1970) - before his untimely death in 1979.