Seclusion Near a Forest () is a 1976 Czechoslovak comedy film directed by Jià ÂàMenzel. Filming took place near Radeà ¡ice (the summerhouse scenes) and in Svatý Jan (the funeral and the bar fight).
An ordinary Prague family, the LaviÃÂkas, yearn for a cottage in the countryside. One of their friends has managed to get a country residence by living in a decommissioned mill. Another is building a house there from scratch and has hired a bricklayerâÂÂwho lets his employer do all the work. A third has succeeded in buying a cottage but with its elderly former owners still in residence, and is trying to evict them by such means as digging a moat across the front door and stopping up their chimney.
Undeterred by such obstacles, the LaviÃÂkas visit a cottage belonging to a charismatic old farmer, Mr. Komárek (Josef Kemr), and are charmed by it, despite a few rotting floorboards and an odor of mildew. Mr. Komárek, to their surprise, offers to sell them the house, saying that he plans to sell his cow, sow no new crops, and move to Slovakia to live with his son. In the meantime, he will rent them a room. After TonÃÂk, a friend of Mr. Komárek's, puts a new floor in the spare bedroom, the LaviÃÂkas move in. Their children almost immediately start addressing Mr. Komárek as Grandpa and join him in collecting eggs from the chickens and in listening to fairy tales read aloud on the radio. Fleas, free-roaming chickens, and a lack of electricity get on the nerves of VÃÂra LaviÃÂková, but her husband, Oldà Âich, remains smitten with country life.
Unfortunately, Mr. Komárek shows no sign of selling his cow or taking any other steps toward vacating the premises. Oldà Âich even makes the alarming discovery that Mr. Komárek has a father who is ninety-two and still hearty. In the end the LaviÃÂkas must accept that their life in the country will have to be a shared one.