Matka Kráčmerka (1934) review - Loud, dusty, and oddly charming

Unless you are a massive nerd for pre-war European comedies, you can probably skip Matka Kráčmerka. It is loud, dusty, and mostly consists of people shouting in tiny rooms.

But if you love seeing how audiences laughed in 1930s Prague, this is a weirdly fascinating time capsule. 🍿

The plot is basically non-existent, just a series of domestic squabbles and matchmaking schemes. At the center of it all is Antonie Nedošinská, who plays the titular mother.

She is basically a human hurricane in a floral apron. She doesn't really speak her lines; she blasts them like a foghorn.

It is exhausting to watch, but you have to respect her sheer lung capacity. Her husband, played by Theodor Pištěk, mostly looks like he wants to hide under the kitchen table, and honestly, I don't blame him.

The whole thing feels like a filmed stage play where someone forgot to tell the actors that the camera is right there. It has that same frantic, slightly chaotic energy of Kukla s millionami, but with way more domestic nagging.

I watched a copy with very shaky English subtitles, which made the fast-paced Czech slang even more bizarre. At one point, a character says something that translated to "don't make a goat out of the garden," which I am still thinking about.

There is a scene where a young couple is trying to be romantic, but the studio lighting is so harsh they both look like they are under police interrogation. The movie gets significantly better when it stops trying to do the romance and just lets the side characters do weird physical gags.

Like this one guy who spends about two minutes trying to hang up his coat, only for the hook to fall off the wall twice. It is dumb, simple stuff, but it made me chuckle more than the actual scripted jokes.

Here are a few specific things I noticed during the runtime:

• The constant clinking of porcelain cups that is somehow louder than the actual dialogue.
• A dog that appears in one shot, looks incredibly confused by the yelling, and then is never seen again.
• Some very aggressive accordion playing in the background that seems to happen at random moments.

It is not a masterpiece, and it definitely feels its age. But as a relic of a forgotten era of regional comedy, it has a weird, noisy charm. Just turn the volume down a bit.