Czech Dream certainly calls into question a few ideas that are tough to swallow, but do they chew it up for you the right way? Of course there is the obvious examination of our susceptibility to corporate marketing, but more interestingly, the film corners itself into a whirl of controversy by causing us to ask whether a hoax of this size can really be considered an act of artistic merit. At the film's conclusion, when the facade is dropped and the masses who gather learn that they've been fooled, Remunda and Klusak (who have been present for the entire process as the face of this fabricated market,) take the heat well as they explain their intentions to this reasonably upset crowd. However, seeing those who have gone out of their way in search of lower prices reads to me as an unfair exploitation of the desperation inherent in a tattered economic system. I'm one for seeing capitalism bare ass with its pants around its knees, but if you were to trick my grandmother into waddling across a field on legs riddled with rheumatoid arthritis, we'd have a few words.
To me, it appears that the pair of filmmaker's are assigning a grounded vendetta against capitalism on top of what most would consider a rather harmless product of the capitalist system. Hypermarkets dont seem villainous enough for this argument. In fact, they're actually painted here as a relatively positive symbol of progress in an economically crippled and confused country as the Czech Republic.
However, shedding light on the advertising groups who put together these psychologically attractive marketing packages works much better for the pair's thesis. The segments they have of their arguments with the ad executives are priceless, portraying them as a mesh of the utopian idealist, the sleek corporate gear, and the heady, presumptuous "artiste." They do a wonderful job of fooling those involved in commercial exposure and distribution into thinking they are showcasing their talents, while in reality they are really contributing to damaging their own image as a reputable enterprise.
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