A recent Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Divided We Fall is set in a small town in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during the latter stages of World War II.  It's based on a true story about hiding a Jewish man from the Nazis and features characters saying things like "You wouldn't believe what abnormal times do to normal people," and "There is nowhere dark enough for us to hide."  From that description, you'd think Divided would be a drop-dead-serious drama, but director Jan Hrebejk's style and use of music almost makes light of his characters' various predicaments and close calls. Parts are very funny, but not over the top like Life is Beautiful.

Divided opens audaciously, introducing the audience to the film's three main male characters in quick, almost random snippets of their lives (it takes about six minutes to encapsulate six years).  We first see Jewish warehouse owner David (Csongor Kassai) and two of his employees – Josef (Bolek Polívka) and Horst (Jaroslav Dusek) – goofing around in 1937.  Then, two years later, David takes up residence in Josef's home after the Nazis kick him out of his giant villa.  Two years after that, David is on the run again, bidding farewell to Josef and his wife Marie (Anna Sisková) as he looks for a safer city to call home.  Finally, in 1943, a gaunt, unhealthy-looking David returns after escaping from a Polish concentration camp.  David's family has been wiped out by the Nazis, and he has nowhere to stay.

The opening does an amazing job of showing David (think Will & Grace's Sean Hayes, only less funny, if that's at all possible), formerly a wealthy, well-respected member of the community, becoming hunted and despised as he creeps around in the city's shadows like a stray pet.  He is spotted by Josef (think a Beetlejuice-era Alec Baldwin), who reluctantly agrees to take David in, cramming him, Anne Frank-style, into a cramped room smaller than a prison cell.

To make matters worse, the perpetually nervous Josef (he shits himself in one scene) and his buddy Horst have taken jobs helping the Nazis impound property from their Jewish neighbors as they're dragged off to concentration camps.  If the soldiers ever discovered Josef and Marie here hiding a Jew right under their noses, the two would be instantly executed.  Horst, who is much more into the whole Nazi thing, has his suspicions, and frequently stops by to offer the couple illegal contraband and, occasionally, to hit on Marie.  And with her husband gone during the day, Marie begins to bond with the ailing David.

It takes almost 90 minutes to get to the payoff in Divided, and when it happens, it's pretty uncomfortable and finds the middle ground between comedy and genocide.  Along the way, there's drama (including the most graphic rabbit-skinning since Roger & Me) and comedy (including a scene where Horst tries to teach Josef how to keep a relaxed, expressionless face like a Nazi).  There are a dozen different ways it could end, and 11 of them are tragic.  Just when you think you've got it all figured out, Petr Jarchovsky's script throws Option 13 at you.  The film is based on his novel, but he actually wrote the screenplay first and later decided to make it into a book because he couldn't afford the movie route.

Divided is, at times, hauntingly photographed by Jan Malir who, along with Hrebejk, expertly manipulates the frames-per-second rate of some of the film's more intense scenes.  The result is a deliciously dark composition that isn't seen much outside of Nine Inch Nails music videos.  It also appeared that Hrbejk (who never played first base for the Twins) superimposed Marie's face over that of the Virgin Mother in a portrait hanging in the couple's living room.  A nice touch by a promising director.

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for some violence and sexual content