Barefoot

It has some magical moments that prove that Svěrák Jr. is a really good director. I appreciate the view of the war through children's eyes, but the story is too disjointed; it needed a unifying line. The story of Uncle Wolf, which was supposed to cement the narrative, isn't enough to pull the whole film together. It's a shame, I really wanted to love this film. (01/01/2019)

I wanted to like it so badly. I was ready to enjoy the expected heartwarming drama and vise-like kindness, but unfortunately I got a film where that is completely absent. In fact, there's almost nothing there. It looks nice, and as far as the production design and costumes goes, I can't fault Barefoot at all, but in all other respects it's wretched. And a mess. The film goes from nowhere to nowhere, and although it is framed by a period and bites into some interesting conflicts, eighty percent of the running time is ultimately completely useless. Trying to cram in as many "flashbacks" as possible results in there being no time for anything and because of that, the humor doesn't work, the drama doesn't work, and the poignancy doesn't work. Most of the time I felt like someone had dropped two minutes of a scene that should have been fifteen minutes long, and I have little idea why I should be watching the boys tackle a classmate, that Eda might get a slap on the wrist, that the dad is at odds with his brother, and that a pigeon has gone missing. There's never time to pay attention to anything properly and the result is such a nice looking film where there's an awful lot going on, but for most of it you'll probably ask yourself why you don't really care about any of it. Too bad. (21/08/2017)

If you are a fan of Svěrák, you’ll survive Barefoot unscathed and even with a pleasant smile. It’s a cute, poetic view of the world through the eyes of a child that is too cute and too loosely poetic – the story lacks a core conflict that would help give shape to the characters and the pleasant episodes of life are supported by several sub-plots, but lack a solid frame and give the impression that they could last another hour. Other than Eda, the character with the most interesting story is Kaiser’s Wolf, the rest have a more or less subordinate position and guide the protagonist through a world driven mainly by family values and the beauty and pitfalls of boyhood, with the war taking a secondary role. It’s not a bad film, it has solid direction and several nicely delivered humour motifs, but the result is too shoddy and inconsistent. 65% (04/01/2019)

The already abbreviated original looks more like an initial hint and outline for a much more extensive material, but it is saved by Sverak's language mastery and wrapped in a precisely matched captivating mix of a boy's mostly summer adventure full of smiling, every day and dramatic moments from growing up in the countryside during the occupation. It´s just a more dramatic variation on There Were Five of Us or Les récrés du petit Nicolas. Although the adaptation largely slavishly and with no context illustrates the scenes from the short story, but what is missing is a safety net made of kind humor and playful Czech language. In addition, there is no dramatic framework and, what is most reprehensible, is that a life vest in the form of a distinctive children's point of view through the adventures of “us, boys, who go out together and experience all kinds of adventures" is completely missing. The result is a nice and incoherent patchwork of better and worse fragments of scenes that is captured in a “watchable" way, nothing more and nothing less. (01/01/2019)

You know that you are watching a very well done film from the 2nd WW period, but at the same time you feel that there is basically no story. And I would be ok with that if only the character played by Oldřich Kaiser (who is getting better with every role) wasn’t made the most interesting one and basically holds the whole story together but then it is killed off in the most disgusting manner towards the end of the film. And this end was my biggest Czech movie disappointment in a very long time. (04/01/2018)