Redemption is Futile

Alicia Chmielewski
2-2-07

Elmar Klos and Jan Kadar,The Shop on Main Street(1966)

“I am sure that audiences will find it difficult to forget the white-haired, hard-of-hearing, and bewildered old lady with the innocent face. She is the most powerful reminder I know of fascism and its victims.”- Jan Kadar on The Shop on Main Street

Jan Kadar commented on the making of The Shop on Main Street (1966) by saying that personal accounts and memories of the horrors of fascism speak louder than statistics; they provide a realism and truthfulness that is too often changed by films attempting to make broad generalizations. The emotive struggles of individuals provide a more telling window into the lived experience of the time and place than a wide-scoped documentary style film could have the power to do. Whereas both types of films would undoubtedly carry strong images of destruction and despair, the imagery of tragedy brought into the lives of real characters whom we grow to identify with and love more closely mimics (or makes us remember) the personal loss of our own loved ones, forcing us to feel the deepest emotional impact possible through our greater identification with the horror.

Both the fear of and attraction to fascism, at least in so much as one becomes complicit with those imposing its ideology, are displayed by the tragic entrapment of Tono Brtko, as he becomes (as we discussed some in class) an everyman character standing in for countless other Slovaks who never wished to bring harm to anyone yet allowed themselves to become trapped by fear and confusion, submitting to popular opinion over personal integrity. During the first few sequences of the film, Tono refuses to go into town, partly because he does not wish to see the monument under construction because it is being built as a beacon of nationalism, including a fascist aesthetic and partly because he does not want to see his brother-in-law, Mark, a local government official supporting the Fuhrer. We immediately see the tension between Tono and his nagging wife Evelyn who, though not presented as inherently wishing any harm on anyone, is in full support of stereotypes and laws working to allow Aryans to grow rich by displacing the Jews. For Evelyn, the sole concern is for her own kind; Jews are “others” and cannot be trusted. She has become totally indoctrinated and cannot understand why her husband has to resist.

Slowly, Tono begins to see his situation in another light when Mark visits, handing him the papers, after bringing decadent gifts and drinking to excess in Tono’s less extravagant home, which declare him the new Aryan owner of Mrs. Lautmann’s button shop. Tono is temporarily excited by the prospects of getting rich by owning a business and does not immediately have any qualms about telling Mrs. Lautmann that she must give up her business and leave because she is a Jew and there is a new law against Jews owning businesses. However, after discovering, through Mr. Kucher that his brother in law has played a mean trick on him, giving his access to an unprofitable shop, Tono is persuaded not to bother the old woman about leaving but to co-own the shop, receiving money from the Jewish community which currently supports Mrs. Lautmann so she will be able to retain her lifestyle as shop-owner.

Although Tono acknowledges from the beginning that this is a dangerous arrangement, evidenced by the fact that he makes up stories to tell his wife about why he has not gotten the keys to the shop and the way he frantically places a “closed for inventory” sign on the building on Sabbath, he does not seem to fully realize the extent to which he is in danger until he hears Mark and other party officials telling the townspeople that Jew lovers are worse than Jews themselves and that anyone who goes against the law will be severely punished.

What happens soon after to Tono is almost Biblical in his denial of friends who have also been aiding the Jews (Kuchar) and the somewhat prophetic dream he has with Mrs. Lautmann telling him that “fear is the root of all evil” just as he is sucked further into his own fear and psychologically haunted by his role in resisting the law. Though horror is written on his face as he sees the gruesome image of Kuchar with a “Jew Lover” sign pinned to his shirt, Tono cannot do anything to object. As a result, he becomes trapped by the guilt over his non-action as well as his fear to act on the behalf of these personal friends.

In the final few sequences, Tono’s fear pushes him to the brink of madness as Mrs. Lautmann appears to remain completely oblivious to her own danger until she sees all of her friends gathered outside the shop and runs to prayer, remembering the pogroms. Tono’s immediate response is to protect the old woman, but as his nerves intensify he is pushed into a rage during which he resolves, “It’s either me or her. She has to go,” and warns her, “Don’t make me throw you out!” Throughout his ravings back and forth, in one instance attempting to make Mrs. Lautmann realize her own danger, in another desperately attempting to persuade her to go outside, Tono adopts a self-pitying attitude, wondering why he has been placed in such a position.

And there is no escape from entrapment to be found for Tono, though those who actively take part in sending the Jews to concentration camps and directly sending them to death, as represented by Mark, walk away without a care weighing their consciences. Ultimately Tono accidentally kills Mrs. Lautmann when he forces her into a closet after the Jews have been driven from town, so that she would not be discovered to both her own and his detriment. Tono opens the closet once danger has passed to find Mrs. Lautmann dead and consequently hangs himself.

In spite of these tragic events, however, I take a different stance on the issue of whether there is any redemption to be found in such events. While I hold that there is no redemption to be found for those trapped by fear and continuing to comply with the extermination of the Jews and the basic tenets of fascism, such as Evelyn or Mark, a futile sort of personal redemption is found for both Mrs. Lautmann (who doesn’t really need redeeming at all) and Tono.

Just before being forced into the closet, Mrs. Lautmann loses her fear of those whom she knows wish her harm; she is determined to close the shop on Sabbath, valuing her beliefs and sense of moral right in spite of the fact that officials are just outside. Though her death was tragic, it did not come as a direct result of a fascist hand. Mrs. Lautmann was martyred while maintaining complete innocence and faith, like countless other Jews who survived this moment only to directly witness the deaths of their loved ones, yet with the dignity of not being subjected to the same torments in a concentration camp.

Tono’s redemption comes as he realizes what has become of him and decides to commit suicide. His suicide releases him from the type of world that could permit such evils. He escapes entrapment through death and returns to a state of no fear with Mrs. Lautmann in a dreamlike eternity.

This analysis of the final scene remains problematic in its shred of redemption, however, because for all the suffering of the entire film, nothing has really changed. Tono and Mrs. Lautmann may be at peace, but only because they are released from the horrors, not because anything changes to make the world less horrific or the simultaneous fascination and fear of fascism less destructive. Nothing changes in the broader context of history and that realization is what creates additional tension in our viewing of the ending. We want to be optimistic, but we realize that no ending would have been able to offer escape in light of such personal tragedy; we are disillusioned as Tono was upon first acknowledging what fascism and nationalism were bringing about. Though released from history in her death, Mrs. Lautmann’s face remains engraved in my memory, there is no escaping her haunting presence.