History Film / TheElementarySchool

* CoolGun: Mr. Hnízdo first starts to win over the boys in the class by showing them the pistol he still carries in a holster, supposedly from the war. He then fires a shot out the window.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/obecna_skola_2.jpg]]

!!Tropes:

* TheCasanova: Igor, who has sex with a married lady, has sex with hot twins, and nearly makes it with Eda's mom, also married.

* CreatorCameo: Jiří Menzel appears very briefly as the gynecologist who determines that Igor did not impregnate the JailBait twins.

* JailBait: Mr. Hnízdo shows an unfortunate fondness for it. When he's brought in to teach Eda's class, the ministry bureaucrat who sent him warns the principal not to let Mr. Hnízdo teach girls. He winds up seducing twin teenaged girls anyway, which caused him to be fired--but bizarrely, when the rumor that the girls were both pregnant turns out to be false, he ''gets his job back''.

* CreatorCameo: Jiri Menzel appears very briefly as the gynecologist who determines that Igor did not impregnate the JailBait twins.

* BratsWithSlingshots: Rosenheim, probably the worst of all the awful students acting up in class, busts out a slingshot and fires a ball at Eda. (It's Rosenheim who later flings an ink bottle at the blackboard, causing ink-spattered Ms. Maxova to break down and walk out of the building.)

* DramaticIrony: Poor beleaguered Ms. Maxova is still lecturing about flowers when the kids in class briefly stop acting up and actually start paying attention. Surprised and delighted, she says "This is how you'll learn about nature and its mysteries!" What she doesn't know is that the kids are watching Tonda surreptitiously crawl up under her desk to find out if she's wearing underwear. (The boys are disappointed to learn that she is.)

* MomentKiller: Igor, who seems to make a habit of going after wives, wants Eda's mom, and from the way she looks at him the attraction is mutual. This plot thread ends when Mrs. Souček shows up in the classroom, looking for Eda, who hasn't come home. After trying to calm her down, Igor embraces her. They look into each other's eyes and clearly are about to kiss...and then Eda and Tonda, who went off joyriding on a train, finally show up.

* UnresolvedSexualTension: Mrs. Souček clearly loves her husband but also obviously feels a sexual attraction for handsome, confident Igor. There are a lot of {{Held Gaze}}s when Igor drops by their apartment for dinner, gazes that Eda's father completely misses. When an agitated Mrs. Souček comes to the classroom looking for her missing son, Igor embraces her and they almost kiss, but Eda and Tonda finally show up and save Mrs. Souček from herself.

''The Elementary School'' (Obecná škola) is a 1991 film from what was once Czechoslovakia,[[note]]One of the last ones, as the nation dissolved into its two pieces on New Year's Day 1993[[/note]] in the Czech language, directed by Jan Sverak.

They get Igor Hnizdo, who comes swaggering in dressed in the uniform he (supposedly) wore in the Czech resistance, complete with jackboots and a gun. Igor has some serious flaws: it eventually becomes clear that he is making up most of his stories about wartime heroics, and he has an unfortunate fondness for having sex with either married women or teenaged girls. But to the boys in class he's a hero. Eda worships Mr. Hnizdo and seems to find his father Fanous Soucek (Zdenek Sverak), a mild-mannered operator at the local electric plant, dull in comparison.

Zdenek Sverak, Jan's father, also wrote the screenplay.

* ApatheticTeacher: Ms. Maxova, the kids' first teacher, who has had her spirit broken and ground into dust by her unruly, uncontrollable students. In an early scene she is vainly trying to explain the reproductive system of a flower as the kids hoot and holler and throw stuff and play games. She drops out of her lecture for a bit to say that she doesn't care what the children do, forlornly commenting that "It's your fault what becomes of you." Then she starts talking about stamens and pistils again.
* AsYouKnow: How do we learn that the one attractive lady is married to the tram conductor? Because when he shows up at the bar, she greets him with "My husband's back from the tram tracks!".

* ClassTrip: Mr. Hnizdo takes the kids on a field trip to see an abandoned bunker, wartime fortifications. This gives Mr. Soucek a chance to show he's not as dull as Eda thinks he is, when he picks up an abandoned German panzerfaust (anti-tank weapon) and renders it harmless by firing it off.
* CoolGun: Mr. Hnizdo first starts to win over the boys in the class by showing them the pistol he still carries in a holster, supposedly from the war. He then fires a shot out the window.
* CoolTeacher: Mr. Hnizdo, who plays the violin in class, shows the kids his gun, gives exciting lectures about the immolation of Jan Hus, and tells all sorts of exciting stories about his supposed exploits in the war. He's so cool that when the principal asks, the students lie and pretend that he never smacked them with a rod.
* CorporalPunishment: When Mr. Hnizdo busts out a rod and starts whacking students on the knuckles, the students point out, correctly, that corporal punishment is forbidden. He answers that it's allowed when a class literally drives its teacher insane.

* DramaticSitDown: A busybody neighbor hustles in the house and tells Eda's mom that Fanous was killed in an accident at the power station. Eda goes tearing off to the power station and learns that his father is just fine and the neighbor misunderstood talk about an exploding transformer. When Fanous comes back home his wife's knees give out and she crumples to the sidewalk in relief, a shot made even more dramatic because it's pouring rain.

* FeetFirstIntroduction: Mr. Hnizdo's arrival at the school is marked by a closeup of his jackboots as he confidently strides in. Then he clicks his heels in greeting before the camera shows his face for the first time.

* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Eda's father Fanous makes a lot of confident comments about how Czechoslovakia can act as "a bridge between East and West" and at one point confidently states that "Here no dictatorship can flourish." Czechoslovakia's brief post-war window of democracy ended with a Communist coup in 1948, followed by 40 years of dictatorship until the Velvet Revolution.
* JailBait: Mr. Hnizdo shows an unfortunate fondness for it. When he's brought in to teach Eda's class, the ministry bureaucrat who sent him warns the principal not to let Mr. Hnizdo teach girls. He winds up seducing twin teenaged girls anyway, which caused him to be fired--but bizarrely, when the rumor that the girls were both pregnant turns out to be false, he ''gets his job back''.
* MilesGloriosus: Mr. Hnizdo tells all kinds of stories about his exploits during the war: he supposedly fought in Africa, and on the Eastern Front, and he parachuted behind German lines, and he escape from a concentration camp. The principal notes that he knows somebody who fought in Africa and that person had no knowledge of Mr. Hnizdo. Eda and Tonda, who believe their teacher wholeheartedly, argue with other kids who think he's bullshitting. After Fanous rather politely notes that [[CouldSayItBut it sure is impressive that Igor had time to do all that stuff]], Igor sheepishly admits that he wanted to give the kids an example.
* MomentKiller: Igor, who seems to make a habit of going after wives, wants Eda's mom, and from the way she looks at him the attraction is mutual. This plot thread ends when Mrs. Soucek shows up in the classroom, looking for Eda, who hasn't come home. After trying to calm her down, Igor embraces her. They look into each other's eyes and clearly are about to kiss...and then Eda and Tonda, who went off joyriding on a train, finally show up.
* MustNotDieAVirgin: Eda and Tonda are tasked with delivering a message from Mr. Hnizdo to a teacher at another school. It turns out to be a note in which Igor says that it's high time the other teacher lose her virginity. He signs it "Igor the Painless."

* SchmuckBait: The principal makes an announcement that, with the hard frost of winter setting in, the kids shouldn't try touching flagpoles or doorknobs with their tongue. Sure enough, ''four'' kids touch a railing with their tongues and all get stuck. When Mr. Hnizdo suggests that the announcement was a mistake, the amazed principal wonders if the kids would drink poison if he told them not to.
* SchoolPlay: The film ends with Mr. Hnizdo's students putting on a play that he wrote about Czechoslovakia's liberation. The mom of the one kid playing a Nazi intervenes when the other kids pretend to beat him up.

* SlowElectricity: Fanous takes his son on a tour of the electric station where he works. The big finish is Fanous throwing a switch and picking up some load, with homes and street lights getting lit up at a rate of about one streetlight a second.

* TwinThreesomeFantasy: As soon as the good-looking twin teenaged girls get a look at Mr. Hnizdo and start giggling, it's clear what will happen. He is seen walking off with them, one arm around each waist, as his other girlfriend (the tram driver's wife) looks on. Later he's accused of impregnating both girls, but after that turns out to be a false alarm he's re-hired at the school.
* TheUnreveal: Did Mr. Hnizdo, who tells a lot of tall tales about his exploits in the war, actually do anything at all in the war? And if so, what? He's obviously making a lot of it up but he does have a uniform and a sidearm.
* UnresolvedSexualTension: Mrs. Soucek clearly loves her husband but also obviously feels a sexual attraction for handsome, confident Igor. There are a lot of {{Held Gaze}}s when Igor drops by their apartment for dinner, gazes that Eda's father completely misses. When an agitated Mrs. Soucek comes to the classroom looking for her missing son, Igor embraces her and they almost kiss, but Eda and Tonda finally show up and save Mrs. Soucek from herself.

* ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer: Rapping the kids's knuckles with a rod actually does help Mr. Hnizdo make them behave.

* UnspokenSexualTension: Mrs. Soucek clearly loves her husband but also obviously feels a sexual attraction for handsome, confident Igor. There are a lot of {{Held Gaze}}s when Igor drops by their apartment for dinner, gazes that Eda's father completely misses. When an agitated Mrs. Soucek comes to the classroom looking for her missing son, Igor embraces her and they almost kiss, but Eda and Tonda finally show up and save Mrs. Soucek from herself.

* ReversePsychology: Accidentally. The principal makes an announcement that, with the hard frost of winter setting in, the kids shouldn't try touching flagpoles or doorknobs with their tongue. Sure enough, ''four'' kids touch a railing with their tongues and all get stuck. When Mr. Hnizdo suggests that the announcement was a mistake, the amazed principal wonders if the kids would drink poison if he told them not to.