...........................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA...and ORLANDO, FL Ahhh! The joys of the simple life....Yes, go hand-in-hand with the joys of a simple movie! Watching films from MANY different countries is an absolutely enthralling endeavor! Each nation's films tend to exhibit a peculiar cultural signature spin, that is a delightfully intriguing puzzle, waiting to be deciphered and savored. An appetite for Czech films is, however, undoubtedly an acquired taste.Let me share some of the things that made TEACHER such a cinematic plum. Very In-Your-Face, but without ever trying in the least to be, is the physical appearance of the actors themselves. WOW! Talk about the antithesis incarnate of the 2 hours per day at the gym, capped-teeth-multiple-plastic- surgery-and-hair-implant, monthly-Botox-injections "LOOK" that seems to be practically the norm in Hollywood...This cast looks like they were sent from "Real-People'R'US", after dropping out of their weekly ReHab meetings!Also, there were a couple moments in the film where I began feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the direction the movie began to go in, but before this discomfort escalated into something more serious, the movie veered off in a pleasantly unexpected direction! No formulaic Hollywood fluff, here...NO Siree, Bob! Two cultural notes: Boy, these Czechs sure are at ease with nudity! People running around nude in the house, Hey, doesn't raise an eyebrow! Also, people are ever so cooperative with official government policy! Government says "No more discrimination against gays in the workplace!" and its: "DAH! Dee government says vee must do dis, so vee are on board...OK!" One pleasant and unexpected surprise...The Czech folk(?)music! Very soothing and haunting melodies. I'll have to ask some of my Czech students to fill me in! Be sure not to miss it! Recommended by a Friend...8* STARS*....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA! Any comments, questions or observations, in English or Español, are most welcome!

Excellent film. I would watch it again.The secret world and the way it seeps through into the real world.If like me you are happy watching beautiful skies and haystacks then beware of a scandalous old flame who may enter stage left and starts to set fire to the whole plot, not just the haystack. Spoiler alert! Maybe. But then you may be relieved the plot never goes where you think it will.This is a very clever film posing as dumb in many ways.I'm a sucker for pastoral flicks. Those leaves rustling in the trees and sunny haystacks make me want to move right there, but will I still want to live in the village by the time the film ends? A cute geeky schoolmaster from the big city lies on top of a haystack with poetic yearnings and I thought of Mr Housman dreaming of his Shropshire Lad and wondered will the lad get up there with him?Watch it and see...and have a cushion to hide behind.....if you don't like it rough...

How often do you get to see two actual cow births in a film? The scenes of farm life in the Czech Republic are a wonderful opportunity to visit another world and escape our own mundane concerns. The entire film is gorgeous to watch and provides terrific escapism in so many ways.A young man leaves Prague to go teach in the country. The audience wonders why he has made this move. As he settles in to his new living quarters, which is a small bit of a room in an old woman's house, with only a sheet hung up for privacy, we wonder how long anyone could possibly live like this. Then we meet the varied characters of the village, and we are impressed by the respect and kindness the country teacher has for the villagers. He seems to sincerely care for them.Then an old lover of his comes to visit. He proves to be a highly disruptive force, and things begin to go wrong in the country teacher's life. Will the troubles unleashed by the unwanted ex-lover's visit cause all of the country teacher's good work to unravel? Will the country teacher have the self-control to keep himself out of trouble? Does he really care for the villagers? Will this story have a sad or happy ending? I won't tell you. But few people would predict the ending of this film correctly, which makes it all the more interesting.The actors in this film are sublime. Especially the 3 main characters. "The Country Teacher" will stay in your thoughts long after you leave the theatre.

This film is hugely flawed in 2 respects. 1. The portrayal of gays here is essentially a cinematic echo of the 1950s message that gay people portrayed in cinema are inwardly tortured, victims, tragic, predatory, paedophile and troublemakers. Also that when the drama of their homosexuality is finally revealed it is the cause of a terrible terrible thing. This film manages to tick every single on of these boxes which is utterly unforgivable considering it was made in 2008.There is no excuse for this. There are dozens of films portraying gay people currently being released which specifically turn their backs on these well known negative conceits and i accuse the director of falling into the trap of being homophobic and uninformed about his subject or the genre in which he posits his movie. (Gay themed film.) 2. The director also makes the mistake of portraying rural people as essentially unsophisticated and mistrusting of the urban folk. It is silently given that they would be prejudice against the secret being harboured by the school teacher because they are small minded. However as a gay person who grew up in a very rural village, i would point out that rural people are not so small minded and heterosexually strident as portrayed. Rural people look after their own and protect what is theirs. Consequently you will find in rural communities that many different kinds of strange relationships are totally accepted and understood and that a simple village person is not so clueless about the extraordinary variations of human nature. The director did not understand the rural condition and so having built up the boy's mother to be a woman of depth and substance he reduced her by causing her reaction to homosexuality to be so disproportionally traumatic. It didn't make sense at all. It's not such a big deal. But it was made a big deal because nobody was really ever good friends with each other in this film. I didn't buy the tears and drama. It was wrong. I think she would have been much more clued up and confrontational and suffice to say she needed to produce any other reaction other than the one she made in order for this movie to break the mold. This film was made by someone who doesn't quite grasp the nature of the contexts he portrays. It was a missed opportunity to play against the usual clichés and he eventually fell into all the well worn and outmoded narrative traps that cinematic discourse has spent the past 30 years exposing.