Jun 26, 2009  |  By: Amy Cavanaugh  | COMMENTS     

It may have a simple plot, but “The Country Teacher,” a Czech film that opens today at the Landmark E Street Cinema, is a thoughtful, complex look at desire and sexuality in a small village.

When the film opens, Petr (Pavel Liska), the 30-something teacher of the title, has just left his job in Prague to move to a small village and teach natural sciences. As Petr settles into his quieter life,
he befriends his landlady Marie (Zuzana Bydzovska), whose advances he rejects, and her wild 17-year-old son, Lada (Ladislav Sedivy), whom he tutors in math. It’s revealed to viewers that Petr is gay when an old boyfriend comes to visit and tries to win him back, but the small community of farmers and fellow teachers doesn’t learn the truth about Petr until he makes a move on Lada, whom he has been lusting after.

When Petr’s boorish, hard-drinking, old boyfriend visits, he learns that Petr never had feelings for him. It also becomes clear that Petr’s move to the small town was fueled by his desire to start over in a place where his sexuality isn’t known, and where he can live quietly and without judgment. The boyfriend’s visit also sets the main events of the film into motion, as he jealously realizes that no one knows Petr is gay and has feelings for Lada.

The problems with this pairing are obvious — Lada is straight and in the midst of a tumultuous love affair with a girl in the village, not to mention that he’s 17 and Petr is a much older man. “The Country Teacher” could be chalked up as yet another film that casts a gay person as a sexual predator, but it somehow manages to move past this with ease. While it’s difficult to watch, Liska and Sedivy play the moment perfectly, with the right hesitancy and awkwardness, to capture two men’s awakenings of very different things. By exploring the effect that Petr’s advance has on Lada, his mother, and Petr himself, Bohdan Slama, the writer and director, examines how each relationship is destroyed and ultimately rebuilt over time.

Beyond the fallout over Petr’s pass at Lada, Petr also comes out multiple times in the film, mostly to acceptance. His mother, who initially says, “sex isn’t everything, she’d understand,” after Petr tells her he broke up with his girlfriend after coming to terms with his sexuality, shortly thereafter shakes her head when she learns he doesn’t have a boyfriend, and tells him that loneliness is terrible. He also comes out to the teachers at his school, but after their initial surprise, it isn’t an issue.

The film’s lovely scenery and classical score, along with excellent performances by the main actors, make “The Country Teacher” a quietly beautiful meditation on morality and gay desire.

“The Country Teacher” is in Czech with English subtitles.