xenophobia: “fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign” - Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary (2002) 

racism: “1. the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others; 2. discrimination or prejudice based on race” - American Heritage Dictionary (2000)

Czech Republic’s official selection for the 2004 Academy Awards Foreign Language Film Up and Down is a satirical look at xenophobia.  Now xenophobia and racism are not mutually exclusive, as the above definitions tell you, but the film – and its director Jan Hrebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchovský - does not make that discrimination (no pun intended).  It has its laughs poking fun at people with such attitudes, but the story is tepid and ultimately unsatisfying.

Up and Down has three stories.  The first one sets up for the other two.  On a routine (illegal) transit, two refugee smugglers found a baby left in their cargo vehicle.  The baby is sold to Mila (Natasa Burger), who is the link to the second story.  She wants a baby, will steal another woman’s pram for it, and would have gone to prison if not for the intervention of her soccer-crazed, security guard husband Franta (Jirí Machácek).  But that is just the beginning of her problems.  The baby is of Indian ethnicity, and Franta is not comfortable with that.  Whether Franta is xenophobic or racist is not clear, but his attempt to hide his new paternal status from his soccer fan club leader Colonel is rather hilarious.

The third story involves an upper-class family of refugee aid worker Hana, her much older schoolteacher partner Ota (Jan Triska) and her beautiful daughter Lenka (Kristýna Boková).  Life is good until Ota collapses during class, after which Lenka learns that he did not divorce his wife Vera (Emília Vásáryová), with whom he has a son Martin (Petr Forman).  In this story, Vera the Russian translator is the xenophobic one because her estranged wife status is the best fit.  At the rare family reunion, she gripes at being the white minority at her Gypsy-dominated apartment complex.  After that, it furthers no more.  While Franta’s phobia is played up for comic relief, Vera’s feels gimmicky and tacked on.  Her feeling towards Martin’s residence in Australia has more to do with a dysfunctional relationship than xenophobia. 

By the way, the two smugglers are not spared.  One of them speaks ill of Asians for their acquired taste in the meat of generic house pets, citing a vacation in Thailand where he witness a bat roasted and served as a delicacy.  The vacation itself is quite a stretch considering his biting remarks.  Later on, two pickpockets echo the same tune but with racial motivation to rob a “slanty-eyed” Burmese couple.  It didn’t work because the male Burmese exercises his black belt in karate.  (I won’t even comment on this racial stereotype.)

Much of the characters’ behaviors are absurd.  By that I mean the Jim Jarmusch kind of absurd (see Stranger in Paradise and Mystery Train) but without his genius.  Ota looks unpleasantly senile in the way he tells the family of meeting and teaching Lenin in school.  But it is difficult to feel for him because he has no depth.  Writing him as a cancer victim does not help much.  Lenka is uncharacteristically unfazed with the idea that Martin could be her father instead of brother, but that is quickly dismissed by Martin.  Then there is Vera’s epithet against Gypsies living in her complex, and telling the already peeved Hana to do something about it.  Franta is written and acted too comically to be taken seriously.  Plus, he sounds like Simpsons character Rainer “McBain” Wolfcastle. 

Undeveloped drama is another problem.  Hrebejk frequently switches gears for the sake of the topic – xenophobia and racism – just when a scene is making progress.  The consequences are the characters feel 1-dimensional and a story that is not engaging.  Hana is justified for yelling at an alien refugee at a fast-food restaurant.  But its placement in the film is pointless because it does not further Hana’s character or the film itself.  What happened after Vera says no to Ota’s request to divorce?  We don’t know because it was never brought up again.  Lenka’s lengthy screen time suggests a story on her is forthcoming.  It never materialized.  Other than the father-or-brother angle with Martin and her profession as dancer, she is just an eye-candy fixture.

The English dubbing for the Australia scenes is one of the worst ever heard in cinema.  It is sloppy both in recording and reading, and grossly mismatched with the actors’ movements.  Accent is forced and unreal.