AKAs I Served the King of England / I Served the King of England

Tagline A look at the glamorous life at an old-world Prague hotel.

Synopsis Jan Díte (Ivan Barnev) is short in height, but high in ambition. To put it bluntly, the young provincial waiter wants to become a millionaire. And he knows just how to do it: by hearing everything, seeing everything, and creating opportunities at every turn. Armed with this knowledge and an irrepressible wish to please, he soon leaves his first place of employment, a pub, for a luxury brothel and, finally moving onto an elegant Art Nouveau Prague restaurant. But by the late 1930s, things are changing: Hitler has taken the Sudetenland region and is breaking apart Czechoslovakia. Jan falls in love with Líza (Julia Jentsch), a Sudeten German proud of her Aryan blood. They marry, and soon after Líza is sent to serve on the Polish front, while Jan remains behind to serve as a nurse in a Nazi SS Research Hospital, but when she returns, she has a fortune in rare stamps that Jews had ‘left behind’ … After Líza’s less than heroic death, Jan sells the stamps and becomes … a millionaire. But he only has three years to enjoy his fortune: the new Communist regime puts him behind bars for 15 years, one for each of his millions… Upon his release from jail, Jan is sent to live in a decrepit border town. Here Jan reflects on the events that have shaped his life - and to reflect on what might have happened if he had played a different role in these events.

Directed by Jiří Menzel, Jirí Menzel  

Starring Ivan Barnev, Oldřich Kaiser, Julia Jentsch, Martin Huba, Marián Labuda, more...

Movie awards
2006, Czech Lions, Best picture
2006, Czech Lions, Best Achievement in Directing, Jiří Menzel
2006, Czech Lions, Best Achievement in Cinematography, Jaromír Šofr
2006, Czech Lions, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Martin Huba

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