Saturnin

Thanks to a well-crafted screenplay filled with sharp and sophisticated dialogues, combined with straightforward directing and excellent casting, the film successfully captures the essence of the conservative society of the 1930s. It's unfortunate that director Věrčák's 97-minute meandering on the edge between a minimalist feature film and a dry Sunday evening TV production tarnishes the film's formal execution. If the director had pushed a bit further on the production aspects, his work could have been a brilliant blend of old-fashioned upper-class humor. In the case of this film, it is the actors who save it, and I have no objections in that regard. Particularly Oldřich Vízner delivers a masterful performance, and his all-knowing commentary can entertain even the most cynical lover of television variety shows. Here only a cynical expert familiar with Jirotka's book can search for errors. I am not such a person, but I will certainly join their ranks in the near future. (12/27/2005)

Jirotka's book has long been one of my favorites, and it must be admitted that dry English humor works much better in the book than in the film. This has the right period tuning, but in some places I would almost say that the lines from the actors' mouths aren’t great and the result is a slightly overacted and affected comedy that loses the inimitable dry charm of the book. (12/12/2005)

One of the best comedies of the last 20 years, if not the best. A beautiful example that we are still capable of producing quality entertainment, it just takes the right people to take charge and have the right idea at hand. You couldn't go wrong with "Saturnin" in essence. The performances in the film are excellent, some of the lines have become widely known. This is simply something you won't regret, whether it's a book, a movie, or even a theater performance. Humor that is delivered not as a provincial joke, but as a symphony. (01/06/2014)

Apart from Vízner in the central role, I’m not particularly happy with the cast. Which might not matter if they had at retained at least the spirit of the original novel. In that respect the screenwriter totally failed. The overall impression isn’t improved by the technical quality that looked like a rather cheap TV production. Saturnín isn’t a bad picture at all, but it’s just too mediocre and unworthy of the original. Nothing more and nothing less. (08/17/2007)

I don’t know why Saturnin isn’t talked about more. Each scene came with a catchphrase. And on top of that the beautiful, kind humor, which I miss a lot in contemporary Czech films. Intelligent, unobtrusive, fun. Near the end, you could however see that it’s easy for viewers to get too much of it so I was glad for an equally unobtrusive conclusion. (02/24/2018)