More than just a bulked-up word for bulked-up superstores, “hypermarket” captures quite nicely the landscape of fervid consumerism arising in countries long starved under Communism. In Czech Dream, the documentarians Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda deconstruct the Czech hypermarket by constructing one of their own: using government grants and product-placement arrangements, they fund a teasing, high-saturation promotional campaign for the new “Czech Dream” hypermarket — really just a false front erected in a meadow. Shambolic Klusák and Remunda mug faux-naively through capitalism’s sausage factory (focus groups, image consultations, an optical scanner to measure the effectiveness of their flyers), and the eau de Michael Moore carries over to their rather shameless manipulation of the citizens whose duping they hope to expose. (In fairness, Klusák and Remunda don’t attempt to sweep their victims under the rug.) Though the stunt reverberated deeply and specifically in a Czech political climate caught up in the question of European Union membership, little is lost in translation — to these eyes, the frenzy over Czech Dream resembles nothing so much as the opening of a new Whole Foods.
Opens June 15 at IFC Center
Opens June 15 at IFC Center
