 
In much the same way that a Robert Altman film utilizes an ensemble cast to bring several seemingly unconnected stories to a point of intersection, acclaimed Czech director Jan Hrebejk treads a similar, but scaled down path in Up And Down. Two men smuggle a truckload of refugees across the Czech border. After leaving their cargo in the woods to fend for themselves, they discover an infant left behind in the commotion and take it to a pawnshop. At an amusement park, a young woman is caught trying to walk away with a child in a stroller. She tells her boyfriend, a former soccer hooligan, that she needs a baby, but because of his criminal record, they’re not allowed to adopt. A university professor collapses during a lecture and is diagnosed with a brain tumor. When his son Martin returns home from Australia, the professor calls a meeting to announce that he wants to divorce his estranged wife of twenty years and marry Hana, the woman he’s lived with since the separation. To complicate matters, Martin and Hana were lovers before she took up with his father and there’s a question of whether or not Martin’s sister is in fact his sibling, or really his daughter. As the lives of these individuals eventually cross paths, Hrebejk examines issues of family, racism and corruption in a country that has only recently emerged from the shadow of civil war and finds that delicate balance of humor and pathos that Mr. Altman does so well. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and range of Up And Down and give it the big thumbs up. - David Bassin
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