Waiter – Czech Film Review

According to a survey conducted in the late 2000s, married Czechs are almost twice as likely to have an affair than their counterparts in the USA. A large number of those interviewed also believe that extramarital dalliances are just the natural way of things.

The Czech Republic is a comparatively atheistic nation, which may be a contributory factor – many Czechs don’t have the moralistic religious angle to keep them on the straight and narrow. This permissive attitude is reflected in Czech movies, where philandering husbands and cheating wives are often portrayed unapologetically, without the finger-wagging subtexts that often haunt affairs in the mainstream cinema of English-speaking countries.

One such adulterous protagonist can be found in Ladislav Smoljak’s Waiter, Scarper! Josef Abrhám plays Dalibor Vrána, a hapless bookshop manager who is pushing forty, on his third marriage, and totally skint thanks to alimony payments. Vrána’s problem is that he is simply incapable of keeping it in his pants when confronted with a member of the opposite sex. He is so incorrigible that when it comes to choosing a new female assistant to replace the one he got pregnant, he picks the homeliest girl available to reduce the risk of pouncing on her…

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In my first review for this site, Accumulator 1, I commented on how Zdeněk Svěrák (Kolya, Empties) was the clear highlight of an otherwise unbalanced film. This time around, I’m delighted to explore a project that actually showcases more of his talents as a screenwriter as well as an actor. Written and directed, respectively, by the duo of Sverák and Ladislav Smoljak, Waiter, Scarper! tells the story of a bookseller named Vrána (Josef Abrhám) who becomes a thief by posing as a waiter to take money from unsuspecting customers.

The film starts with Vrána getting ready for his high school reunion by donning a tuxedo that makes him resemble a waiter. Once he arrives, he realizes that most of his classmates have gone on to have a much better life than him.

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His marriages have left him in dire straits since he has to pay alimony while also supporting his current family, and even his neighbour, Parizek (Svěrák), who plays the fiddle, has a better car than him. He’s so ashamed of what his life has become that he leaves his noticeably cheaper car in the parking area — only to pick it up later when nobody’s around…

Continue reading “Waiter, Scarper! (Vrchní, prchni!) – Ladislav Smoljak, 1981”