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This award-winning comedy follows a diminutive train-station sausage seller over the course of four decades on his journey to bus...
This award-winning comedy follows a diminutive train-station sausage seller over the course of four decades on his journey to bus boy and millionaire hotelier, before ending up as a disgraced Nazi collaborator.
Jan Dite is an ambitious go-getter whose only wish in life is to become stinking rich. Landing a job at a luxurious Prague hotel in the 1930s, Dite stealthily climbs the career ladder and happily indulges in the hedonism that surrounds him. This is a world where beautiful women gladly sprawl nude on a rotating centrepiece for the enjoyment of wealthy diners, and even though Dite is technically still a servant, he enjoys his fair share of the spoils. As World War II approaches and the Germans occupy Czech lands, Dite falls in love with Líza, a propaganda-spouting Nazi who only agrees to bed Dite when she learns he has German blood. Scorned by his countrymen for marrying the enemy, Dite is all but oblivious to the politics that surround him, even as he is hired to impregnate Teutonic goddesses in an Aryan breeding centre.
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80 %88 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
81 %8,891 reviewsAudience score rating
"An ambitious yet apolitical Czech everyman pursues his fortune as his country endures the turbulent middle decades of the last century in the beguiling, bigger-than-life black comedy "I Served the King of England." A virtual primer on the unique mixture of self-deprecating dark humor and personal tragedy that has been the Czech cinema's stock-in-trade since their celebrated 1960s New Wave."
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Variety
Variety"The film's strength - it's whimsy - is also its weakness, with Menzel often letting his guard drop and letting the novel run away with the screenplay. But it's diverting and it's unique."
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Urban Cinefile
Urban Cinefile"The whimsical humour has a charming and timeless appeal to it, and the wistful philosophy provides amusing diversion rather than real distraction. Served celebrates life’s pleasures, and the appreciation of food, women, money and Pilsner is realised gorgeously in a series of staggeringly opulent visual feasts (including a highly imaginative use of a Lazy Susie)."
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Lumiere Reader
Lumiere Reader"A sumptuously told tale of childlike wonder in the face of darkest corruption and war, mixing high comedy, surreal sequences and genuine drama viewed from a wise, jaundiced perspective. Given time to finds its audience, which is anyone who likes the Coen brothers, "Served" could do well across all territories as its visual humor and topical significance give it mainstream grown-up appeal."
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Hollywood Reporter
Hollywood ReporterI Served the King of England | Details
- Rating
- M, contains nudity, sex scenes
- Runtime
- 120
- Genre
- Comedy, Romance, War
- Country of origin
- Czech Republic
